Police Commissioner Allister Guevarro says he had no choice but to approach the National Security Council, led by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, to request a State of Emergency after receiving troubling intelligence on Thursday.
Addressing a media briefing on Friday morning, Commissioner Guevarro said it was with a heavy heart that he advised the Prime Minister and Attorney General John Jeremie to have President Christine Kangaloo proclaim a State of Emergency in Trinidad and Tobago.
“Yesterday afternoon, I would have received intelligence reports whereby organised criminal gangs, with persons inside of the prisons and persons operating on the outside of the prisons had formed themselves into what I would want to term an organised crime syndicate and that they were planning, actively so, to carry out assassinations, robberies, and kidnappings.”
The Commissioner said that though he had been aware of various pieces of intelligence before, it was on Thursday evening that he received a key piece of information which pushed him to approach the National Security Council and request a State of Emergency.
“The President last night would have signed that proclamation, and I would have received it. Following which, my men and I hit the ground running and I just having returned from the Maximum Security Prison at Arouca, where I personally supervised the extraction of those gang leaders to be placed in another facility.”
Commissioner Guevarro said recent acts of kidnapping and homicides were traced back to this organised crime syndicate.
“Since 12:02 this morning, when I received the Proclamation. At 12:05, my men already started covert and overt operations throughout the country. So the part with me coming from the prisons was just a part of that. This is not an SOE of reaction. It is an SOE with proaction. So, even whilst I was approaching the Prime Minister and the Attorney General to take action, I was hopeful, and placed things in position to act immediately.”
Among the powers granted to the TTPS during a State of Emergency is the ability to enter a citizen’s residence without a warrant.