An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials have promised that Car­ni­val 2026 will be one of the safest ever.

They as­sured there would be an in­crease in pa­trols and greater vis­i­bil­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the cap­i­tal city, be­gin­ning from Christ­mas.

The launch of Car­ni­val will take place to­day at the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade in Port-of-Spain.

Fol­low­ing a stake­hold­er meet­ing on Wednes­day aimed at strength­en­ing part­ner­ships re­gard­ing crime re­duc­tion and pub­lic or­der man­age­ment dur­ing Christ­mas and Car­ni­val, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice in charge of Op­er­a­tions, Suzette Mar­tin yes­ter­day said, “The pub­lic can be as­sured that their safe­ty is of para­mount im­por­tance to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, and we have tak­en steps to pre­serve law and or­der in every way.”

On Wednes­day, Mar­tin, who is the Gold Com­man­der for Christ­mas 2025 and Car­ni­val 2026, rolled out Op­er­a­tion Fes­tive Shield dur­ing a meet­ing with Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne, Snr Supt of the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion, Ray­mond Thom, Supt of City Po­lice, Glen Charles, re­spec­tive sta­tion com­man­ders, and com­mu­ni­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Pre­sent­ing the Christ­mas Crime Plan as she lis­tened to con­cerns and sug­ges­tions, Mar­tin urged the rel­e­vant agen­cies, in­clud­ing the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion, to fol­low the TTPS’ call for every­one to Get On Board.

She said the co­op­er­a­tion of res­i­dents and busi­ness­es would on­ly serve to en­cour­age more peo­ple to vis­it the cap­i­tal, as well as pro­vide a sense of se­cu­ri­ty for all vis­i­tors.

Mar­tin re­ceived a re­quest for in­creased po­lice pa­trols in the Wood­brook dis­trict, es­pe­cial­ly be­tween 3 am and 6 am, as well as for ad­di­tion­al ve­hi­cles to be added to the fleet avail­able to of­fi­cers.

She promised en­hanced crowd and traf­fic man­age­ment in Wood­brook, as well as at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah (QPS) and the wider Port-of-Spain dis­trict, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing ma­jor events.

An ap­peal was al­so made for im­proved com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the TTPS ahead of events, so peo­ple would be aware of traf­fic di­ver­sions, al­ter­na­tive routes, and event in­for­ma­tion.

Is­su­ing an as­sur­ance that the po­lice would al­so be ad­dress­ing il­le­gal park­ing in and around Memo­r­i­al Park, the Roy­al Botan­ic Gar­dens, and the QPS, Mar­tin said, “We will be boost­ing foot pa­trols in St Clair and school pa­trols across the dis­trict.”

This was al­so fol­lowed by the promise that there would be greater po­lice vis­i­bil­i­ty at sev­er­al taxi stands with­in the city lim­its, dur­ing late hours.

Faced with con­cerns re­gard­ing rob­beries, pick­pock­et­ing, and oth­er street crimes, she said they had been util­is­ing in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions to com­bat this, while they con­tin­ued to train of­fi­cers on their pro­fes­sion­al con­duct and ad­her­ence to the TTPS’ one-door pol­i­cy.