The Trinidad and Tobago Police Service says the end of the state of emergency has not brought an end to intensified policing.
Through Operation Watchtower, the TTPS says it is maintaining visibility at key locations, supported by patrols, drone surveillance, and intelligence-led deployments. This comes after the police service released final figures from the 199-day state of emergency, including more than six thousand arrests, hundreds of firearms seized, and hundreds detained under preventive detention orders.
The Trinidad and Tobago Police Service says its post-state of emergency crime strategy is now centred on Operation Watchtower — a framework intended to keep police visibility in place after emergency powers ended.
Deputy Commissioner of Police, Suzette Martin says the approach is meant to prevent any operational gap.
“What happens the morning after the state of emergency end? Our objective was clear. There must be no operational vacuum, no sudden withdrawal of police visibility, and no loss of our operational momentum.”
The three mobile police posts, located at Eddie Hart Savannah, Grand Bazaar, and the Tarouba Interchange,
have been incorporated into divisional command structures.
“So these are more than physical police posts. They are multi-agency operational platforms, strategically positioned to strengthen our visibility, surveillance and response capability.”
The TTPS figures from the 199-day emergency period saw 13,533 operations, executed 2,008 warrants, arrested 6,027 people, charged 1,423, and recovered 326 firearms.
On preventive detention orders, the TTPS says 574 were executed, with 260 detainees later charged. The DCP says Watchtower will be judged not only by arrests, but by prevention, response, intelligence, and public confidence.
“The success of Watchtower, therefore, cannot and will not be measured simply by the number of arrests made. We will assess crime trends, prevention, response capability, intelligence generated, operational activity, community engagement, and importantly, whether our citizens feel safer because people must not only be safer, they should feel safer.”
The Deputy Commissioner said the three mobile police units have so far recorded 247 patrols across the locations, with drone patrols also forming part of the surveillance effort.
The service has also sought to separate Operation Watchtower from the Special Operations Bill now before Parliament, saying it continues to operate under the existing legal framework. For now, its message is that while the state of emergency has ended, its heightened policing posture has not.