Trinidad and Tobago declares state of emergency over gang violence

PORT OF SPAIN, TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO -  Trinidad and Tobago on Monday declared a state of emergency due to a spike in murders by criminal groups, a move that grants police the ability 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 the 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.

Young, speaking at a press conference in the capital Port of Spain, said the public emergency would not include a curfew or restrict people’s movements, to minimize the economic impact of the declaration.

The authorization for police to carry out searches and arrests without a warrant may be extended up to seven days by a judge, Young said.

At the same press conference, Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds called the spike in violent murders “an epidemic” for the country of 1.4 million residents, with 551 shootings recorded this year, as of December 26.

Recent incidents of violence included a man shot and killed after leaving a police station in Port of Spain on Saturday, and a shooting in Laventille, Trinidad, on Sunday that killed five.

A state of emergency had previously been declared for the same reason in 2011, but the application was limited to “hotspots” of crime.