PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley Friday said he has requested that members of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force be deployed to criminal hot spots across the country in response to what he termed the “callous” killings by criminals since the start of the year.
Speaking at a news conference here, Rowley said he had instructed his National Security Minister retired Major General Edmund Dillion to ensure that the request is heeded and that the patrols will be on a 24 hour basis.
It follows the brutal murders of two teenage secondary school boys on Thursday in the volatile Laventille area, along the east-west corridor.
Police have since said that two persons are assisting in their investigations into the murders of De-neil Smith, 17and Mark Richards, 15, who were gunned down less than an hour after classes ended bringing the amount of people murdered here so far this year to 33. The two boys were in the company of other students when the gunmen, ordered them out of a vehicle and shot them.
Rowley said that the soldiers, accompanied by the police, will operate in communities such as Chaguanas, Diego Martin and Laventille where there is a high crime rate.
He said he was concerned when “our children are being murdered in the most callous manner” and urged people with information on the killings to assist the police with their investigations.
Prime Minister Rowley told the residents that by remaining quiet they were in turn encouraging the criminal elements in the communities.
Dillion told reporters that the authorities would adopt new measures to deal with crime in the country and that the fight would be taken to the criminal elements in society.
“We are going to take the fight to those criminals, those who feel they could bear arms illegally in Trinidad and Tobago,” he said, adding that the security forces ‘will have a presence throughout Trinidad and Tobago…
“We are going to ensure that the criminal elements who choose that way will be dealt within the law with a very strong presence and a very strong reaction from the security services,” he told reporters.
Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Kamla Persad Bissessar has called on both Prime Minister Rowley and Dillion to “shape up or ship out” saying that the government needed to deal effectively with the crime situation here.
“If the person charged with the responsibility for National Security is in denial about the reality of the situation, then we cannot expect a critical response to arrest the deadly state of affairs in our nation,” she said.
