Trinidad and Tobago declares state of emergency over escalating gang violence

Theresa Braine, New York Daily News on Dec 30, 2024

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Trinidad and Tobago’s government declared a state of emergency on Monday after a weekend of violence fueled by gangs and organized crime sent the year’s murder rate to 623.

“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 the public safety; and a state of public emergency exists in TT,” said President Christine Carla Kangaloo in a declaration obtained by Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.

The measure was taken after five men were shot Sunday night just outside the capital, Port of Spain. That may have been in retaliation for the killing of a prominent gang member who was gunned down Saturday in an attack on the gang’s leader as the group left a police station, Trinidad and Tobago Newsday reported.

Officials, expecting more reprisal killings in its wake, said the declaration would be used to crack down on gangs, Reuters reported. The murder toll in the dual-island Caribbean nation with a population of 1.5 million make it one of the most violent countries in the region, The Guardian reported.

The declaration does not impose curfews, and businesses will remain open, officials said. It gives the police and army broad authority to detain people without charging them and to conduct warrantless searches, The Guardian reported.

Officials said that solid information the country’s National Security Council had received about further reprisal plans, combined with the use of high-powered weapons in the crimes, poses a threat to national security.

“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,” Acting Attorney General Stuart Young said at a press conference Monday morning, according to the Trinidad Express, adding that the government had information demonstrating “very clearly a continued level of planning and execution by the criminal element utilizing these illegal firearms.”

Situated off the coast of Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago has become a haven for drug smugglers to send their goods to European and U.S. markets. Crime is rampant, and the country has been under a level 3 travel advisory from the U.S. Department of State, which encourages people to “reconsider travel.”

More murders were taking place even as country officials spoke at the press conference, the Trinidad Express reported, with at least one person dead.