Trinidad and Tobago declares state of emergency to combat gang violence | Gun Violence News

The Caribbean Republic of Trinidad and Tobago announced a state of emergency in response to an increase in weekend gang violence.

The statement gives police extra powers as they seek to reduce reprisal crime and other gang-related activity.

“Declaring and invoking a public state of emergency is something that is not taken lightly,” Acting Attorney General Stuart Young said at a press conference on monday.

He explained that information from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service “dictated and necessitated this extreme action that we took this morning.”

The state of emergency empowers the country’s police to arrest people “suspected of involvement in illegal activities”. It will also allow law enforcement to “search and enter public and private premises” and suspend bail.

A government statement said no ban would be imposed and freedom to meet publicly or demonstrate in marches would not be hindered.

Young indicated that an increase in weekend violence in the capital, Port of Spain, helped trigger the emergency declaration earlier this month.

“You will recall that on Saturday, just after 3 o’clock in the afternoon, outside the police station on Besson Street, there was a shooting involving a high-caliber automatic weapon,” Young explained.

Local media described the shooting as an ambush.

An alleged gang leader, Calvin Lee, had arrived at the police station to sign his bail, but as he and his entourage left, The Daily Express reported that gunmen got out of a nearby van and started shooting.

One person was killed. Lee himself managed to escape. But Young explained that the shooting led to retaliatory killings between local gangs.

In 24 hours, he said, six people were shot in Laventille, a suburb of Port of Spain. Five of them were killed. Young said further retaliatory attacks are still anticipated.

“Increased retaliatory activities can be expected from criminal elements in and around certain places in Trinidad and Tobago, which immediately justified and took us out of what we can consider normal,” he explained.

He declined to name specific locations where gang activity may be concentrated.

“But I can say that in Trinidad and probably in Tobago, (criminal gangs) are likely to immediately escalate their reckless acts of violence in retaliatory shootings on such a large scale that they threaten people and endanger public safety.”

Young added that the decision to invoke the state of emergency was in part a result of the high-caliber weapons used in the attacks, which increased the possibility of bystander deaths.

He noted the involvement of AK-47s and AR-15s.

“In the last month or so, and actually building up to now, the government has been concerned about the use of illegal high-powered firearms – high-caliber firearms, including automatic weapons which, unfortunately, are a scourge in the entire Caribbean region,” Young said.

Caribbean countries not the factory the firearms themselves and many of the weapons used in gang violence were imported illegally.

One source in particular stands out: the United States. It is the largest arms exporter in the world.

In March, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute finder that the US was the source of about 42% of global arms exports.

A 2017 analysis from the Small Arms Survey also found that the US owns the highest number of private guns per capita, with US civilians owning 40% of the world’s firearms.

US weapons have been linked to crimes in the Caribbean, from Haiti and Jamaica to Trinidad and Tobago.

The US has partnered with 13 Caribbean countries to help disrupt the illegal firearms trade. Between 2018 and 2022, an estimated 7,399 firearms collected from crimes in the region were sent to the US for traceability.

In October, the US Government Accountability Office released a report with its findings. Of all the firearms recovered and traced during that four-year period, a total of 5,399 – or 73 percent – from the USA. Several hundred more had ambiguous origins.

The proliferation of illegal firearms has been linked to increased violence in the Caribbean. Trinidad and Tobago, for example, is struggling with a record homicide rate.

There were 61 homicides in December alone, according to the government. The country has so far recorded 623 homicides in 2024.

“Gangs accounted for 263 of them,” Fitzgerald Hinds MP, the national security minister, told Monday’s news conference.

“So, accordingly, we feel that this declaration of public emergency is to confront criminals and allow law enforcement easier than usual access to them in light of the crises they have presented to this country.”