By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Trinidad and Tobago on Monday declared a state of emergency in response to a spike in criminal activities, especially killings by criminal groups.
The emergency permits the police to conduct searches and arrests without a warrant over the next two days.
“The circumstances warranting the declaration of the public emergency are based on the advice of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service to the National Security Council of heightened criminal activity which endangers public safety,” Prime Minister Keith Rowley’s office said in a statement.
Attorney-General Stuart Young said the country recorded 61 murders in December, bringing the year’s total up to 623 homicides, an increase from 577 homicides recorded in 2023 and 599 in 2022.
The Attorney-General, while addressing a press conference in the capital Port of Spain, said curfew or restriction of people’s movements will not be part of the public emergency.
Young added that part of the emergency, which allows the police to carry out searches and arrests without a warrant, may be extended up to seven days if the court permits.
Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds, who also spoke at the press conference, described the spike in violent murders as “an epidemic.”
The country has a population of 1.4 million, and 551 shootings were recorded this year, as of December 26.
An AFP report says recent incidents of violence include the shooting and killing of a man who was stepping out of a police station in Port of Spain on Saturday, and a shooting in Laventille, Trinidad, on Sunday that left five persons dead.
A state of emergency had previously been declared for the same reason in 2011, but the application was limited to “hotspots” of crime.
