SCARBOROUGH, Tobago, Jul 9, CMC – Trinidad and Tobago Police Commissioner, Erla Harewood-Christopher, Tuesday promised an increase police presence on the sister isle of Tobago following a spate of murders resulting in the island recording more deaths during the first seven months of this year than all of 2023.
In the latest killings, police have launched a search for three gunmen who shot and killed four people, while they were playing a card game on Monday.
The police said that those killed are Jomoke Duncan, who died at the Scarborough General Hospital on Monday night, while Ansleym Douglas, 56, Samuel McKain, 35 and Gregory Hamlet, 53, died at the scene of the shooting.
The assailants then escaped in a waiting vehicle.
Speaking at a news conference following a meeting of the National Security Council, chaired by Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley, the top cop acknowledged that there has been an increase “in violent crime” on the island.
“It has not gone unnoticed,” she told reporters, adding that she has deployed additional resources “to create and to facilitate a frontal approach against the criminal elements”.
Harewood-Christopher, flanked by a number of her senior executive members, said more police officers had been sent to Tobago on Monday to provide training to front line officers.
‘We will increase our intelligence focus on the island of Tobago .We will provide training to develop the capacity of the officers in terms of intelligence gathering and investigations,” she said, adding “we still implore that we get the engagement of the public to assist with the human intelligence.
We cannot do it alone, we will increase our technological capabilities with the use of the CCTV cameras and we will also seek to increase the intelligence gathering by the use of our cybercrime and additional forensic capabilities,” she added.
The killings here on Monday brought the murder toll so far this year to 15, two more than the entire 2023. So far this year, Trinidad and Tobago has recorded 301 murders.
Chairman of the Tobago Chamber of Commerce, Martin George, has called on Tobagonians to stop saying that Trinidad gangs were “infiltrating” Tobago and accept that “we are raising and breeding our own home-grown bandits”.
He also urged the Government to pass legislation to proclaim the Tobago Police Bill or to make the necessary amendments to the Tobago House of Assembly Act so that a supplemental police force could be set up on the island.
“Now we have reached the record books which is Tobago’s first triple murder being recorded on Monday morning.
“So Tobago. We have to stop making the excuses that we are accustomed to making. We have to stop saying that it is gangs from Trinidad infiltrating Tobago and we have to stop burying our heads in the sand whereby we refuse to acknowledge that we are raising and breeding our own home-grown bandits into Tobago,” George added.
Tobago House of Assembly Chief Secretary, Farley Augustine, who attended the National Security Council meeting, described it as a “very productive one,” adding “we wen through in great detail the uniqueness of the Tobago circumstance and some strategies for dealing with those circumstances.
“As you will expect, we just cab’t publicly conversate about those strategies, because certainly we want to have an advantage over those who want to destroy our peaceful paradise.
‘I hope all Tobagonians understand that there is the need for an aggressive approach to policing and to treating with criminals on island and I hope when an aggressive approach is taken that we will get the support of the community at large because we need you as part of the policing effort.
‘We need you to share information safely, we need you to cooperate with the TTPS (Trinidad and Tobago Police Service) and to ensure to return Tobago where it was…certainly Tobago can be a pilot for what a safe community can look like,” Augustine added.
Prime Minister Rowley told the news conference that the government of Trinidad and Tobago is responsible for law and security in both countries and that the Office of the Attorney General is discussing the legislation regarding the establishment of a police section on the sister isle..
“Under the laws that we operate under, notwithstanding the THA (Tobago House of Assembly) Act, and the executive authority of the THA , safety and security in Tobago is the responsibility of central government.
“I have every intention to discharge that responsibility with the people of Tobago. The police told us this morning in great detail what can help them to improve the situation and the central government will take steps to make every one of those threads available so the fabric can be strong”.
Rowley said the government is also looking at the relocation of the police headquarters here, with the authorities’ examining the possibility of a prefab building in the interim “because every body agreed that might help in managing the Tobago situation.
“Finally, I would say to the people of Tobago, each and everyone of you, if you have information about criminal conduct in Tobago, especially violent criminal conduct, you will do yourself a great favour if you advice the police (and) that through the mechanisms that are available that who in Tobago is threatening not only your life, but you community and the general well being if Tobago”.
Rowley said that a “small number of people behaving like this could destroy the potential that Tobago holds out to its citizens”.
CMC/fd/ir/2024