Security minister calls for change of attitude in communities affected by gang warfare

PORT OF SPAIN (CMC):

National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds has questioned whether residents of an east Port of Spain area will “go back to life and business as normal” following the killing of five people, including a senior police officer, last weekend.

Hinds said the weekend killings had “shocked and traumatised” the population and that he knew three of those killed, including Police Sergeant Larry Phillips.

“This community and its immediate environs have hosted countless explosions of such violence over decades. This bloody event took five lives, including my friend Larry Phillips,” Hinds wrote on Facebook, saying “the police have indicated that it is the result of the gang activity”.

“The area is dominated by gangs. Thus far, the police have had only limited success in eradicating the gangs. It can be done, but it requires a multi-pronged approach, including all aspects of the state’s possible response; most of all, a genuine desire on the part of the non-gang residents and business owners in these communities.”

Hinds said that this would require not only a burning desire, but a sincere, unselfish, non-deceitful, clean and courageous collective response on the people’s part.

“The reaction and the behaviour of elements of the community, revealed, even in the videos that flowed from ... the event, show that the consciousness and sincerity, the understanding of the danger that we all face at the madness of the gangsters, is simply not present and is a long way off in coming.”

He said the affected communities “go through the rituals as we always do, and go back to life and business as normal by tomorrow … or will we use this ‘madness’ as a call to sincerity and determined action for the sake of our future generations?”

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, in a post on the Facebook page of the Office of the Prime Minister, said the “latest outrage, where five persons lost their lives at one location … brings home the depth of the problem that the government is grappling with”.

“This ever-increasing total wanton disregard for human life is to be condemned in the soundest of ways. My condolences go out to the families who are today experiencing the pain that traumatises the entire national community.”

Rowley said that the “presence of, and frequent use of assault weapons in our country has brought an added dimension of effectiveness to the murderous lawlessness which continues to plague us.

“I want to give the nation the assurance that even as we experience today’s tragedy, the state, through its lawful activities, will continue to identify and extract these weapons and their criminal owners and operators.”

He said the population can rest assured that the state agencies “will not give up the fight to rid our streets and other places of the evil that is now widespread as a ‘gun culture’ in Trinidad and Tobago”.