PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley will head a delegation to the United States later this month for talks on the particular vetted unit regarding security to be established within the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) and the ongoing problem of exportation of illegal guns from the North American country to Port of Spain.
Rowley said that he would be leaving here on January 28 after he had indicated that Washington had suggested the specially vetted unit within the TTPS and was willing to work with the Caribbean region on the problem of the illegal shipment of guns that regional governments have linked to an increase in murders in their respective countries.
Rowley said his administration has been working very closely with the US and would be in Washington for two days, meeting with several US officials.
Rowley said the government is trying to strengthen the TTPS by ensuring it has more trustworthy people, complaining that it is one of the country’s problems.
“Rest assured that as some conversations imply, the government and its agencies are not just sitting there and watching criminals run riot. We need information, as that generates evidence which is required for a prosecutorial state,” Rowley said, reminding that Trinidad and Tobago is not a manufacturer of guns nor is it involved in human trafficking.
“An uncomfortable number of hardened criminals from abroad are entering Trinidad and Tobago. Some elements of local organized crime are very troubling to us here, but we work to eradicate them.
“The criminal element is not without resourcefulness to get themselves into a position. The whole idea of having a gang, in many instances, is some person who has more than two brain cells who organizes other people in a way to benefit them, using other people either as employees or foot soldiers to do what they want to be done and if work is going on. There’s a criminal element present as there are they sometimes go out there and threaten people who get work in a normal way, ‘shakedown’ contractors … kill people on the site.
“All of that is to send a message that ‘if you don’t do what I want, this is what will happen.’ Some people consent to it, some go away, some try to fight and pay a price.”
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