Saturday Express

THE NATIONAL NEWSPAPER FOR TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

IT is becoming increasingly evident that the Police Service has no plan for countering the deadly wave of gang violence now sweeping the country and is as helpless as the rest of the population.

With murders racing at the rate of almost two a day since the start of the year, the authorities must intervene now to prevent further escalation. As head of the National Security Council Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley must call his troops together and come up with a plan to disrupt the gangs which appear to be roaming the country at will and without fear of those in authority.

The Prime Minister can start with reviewing his decision to assign the critical National Security portfolio to Fitzgerald Hinds who seems far too distracted by his political hobby of attacking government critics on social media to focus on the job.

At this time of high crime, the nation's security requires competent and decisive leadership in which the citizenry can have confidence.

Earnest as he may be in his efforts to lead the charge from the operational standpoint, the current Acting Police Commissioner is yet to strike a chord of assertiveness with the general population.

In addition to the continued occurrence of murders, there is the apparent return of kidnappings for ransom. The criminals have obviously come to the conclusion that somehow we are in a period in which they must seek to violently reassert their presence.

Acting Commissioner Jacob, just as are the rest of us right-thinking citizens, is expressing concerns over the escalation in gang violence.

The murder method of choice at this juncture is to simply walk, or drive up to someone decided as a target, and take them out with the use of a gun. Just so.

Expressing his own sense of alarm about these brazen and wanton attacks, the Acting Commissioner said suspects are simply coming into the country, carrying out their deadly assaults and then leaving.

We seem to be back into situation in which those in authority must sit down and come up with new strategies to address the resurgence of this menace. Those in the intelligence community as we know it seem to be aware of the methods at work in this continued phase of wanton criminality.

Time of day does not matter; location of the targeted victim is of no consequence. Whether they may be standing alone, or with one or two others the gunmen, paid assassins most likely, see themselves as simply having a job to do.

The midday ambience at the South Park mall, on the bypass road near the Highway, was shattered with the slaying of two men, one from Arima, the other from Morvant.

Forty-three murders in the 27 days up to Thursday have placed a level of intense scrutiny on the country's law enforcement administration.

We have to be assured that the Prime Minister, as head of the National Security Council, has summoned the troops for an emergency roundtable, to review where we are at the moment.

Edginess is once again creeping into the national psyche, adding to the stresses posed by the continuation of the Covid menace.

Those in the respective positions of leadership and command must lay down the markers now, once again.