With violent crime and gangland slaying spiraling out of control, authorities in Trinidad Monday announced the imposition of a state of emergency (SOE) from this week, giving police and soldiers additional constitutional powers to target heavily armed gangsters and others involved in reprisal killings and other violent crimes.
The SOE, the third since more than 100 members of a Muslim sect had tried to overthrow the Trinidad government in a failed coup attempt in 1990 and a second in response to the 2020 Covid pandemic, followed Sunday night’s slayings of five people in Port of Spain, the capital as these took the 2024 murder toll to 623, with two days left in the year, compared to last year’s tally of 577, according to official figures.
Titular President Christine Kangaloo announced the SOE early Monday following a series of overnight meetings on addressing a spiraling crime situation. The cabinet said it was time to act, pushing Prime Minister Keith Rowley to ask Kangaloo to do the honors and declare an emergency situation.
She noted that as president and commander in chief, based on the advice of Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley, declared a state of public emergency, being satisfied that the circumstances of section 8(2)(c) of the Constitution exist. I am satisfied that a public emergency has risen as a result of the occurrence of action that has been taken or is immediately threatened by any person of such a nature and on so extensive a scale as to be likely to endanger public safety. A state of public emergency exists in T&T,” she said in the proclamation.
Unlike previous SOEs, there will be no curfew restrictions of public meetings, marches, or gatherings this time around, as both acting Attorney General Stuart Young and Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds suggested that the SOE is specifically aimed at giving police and the military additional constitutional powers to deal with heavily armed criminals engaged in inter-gang warfare, extortion of businesses, arson attacks in properties, home invasions, kidnappings for ransoms and other violent acts.
Young said the cabinet had deliberated not to impose a curfew because “we do not want to limit economic activity. We have to trust those with responsibility for national security. It is giving additional powers where constitutional rights have been suspended for those of particular offenders,” Young told reporters. The initial period will last for three months, with an option for three more with approval from parliament.
“We’re going to have a 48-hour holding period where people can be held under these regulations. Thereafter, either a magistrate or a senior police officer can make an order of detention for another seven days whilst evidence is being gathered with respect to people being held under the SOE regulations, noting that people in illegal possession of firearms, ammunition, and explosives will be specifically targeted by police and soldiers. People who are found in the company of anyone with these items will also be detained. Over the last month or so and building up to this, the government has been concerned about the use of high-powered illegal firearms.”
He said that intelligence fed to the Security Council has indicated that there could be retaliatory events involving gangs and other criminal elements. We are seeing brazen behavior by these criminal elements in the use of illegal firearms, which necessitated the calling of this public state of emergency and “very clearly a continued level of planning and execution by the criminal element utilizing these illegal firearms. In a nutshell, what the country is facing is a decision based on information about criminal activity—specifically the use of high-powered and high-caliber weapons.” Hinds said the SOE is for the greater public good, while Young noted that bail applications for those arrested by police or soldiers will be denied, and so will be habeas corpus efforts.
There have been more than 60 murders in December alone.
