00:00Ladies and gentlemen we had at least 73 firearms thus far that has been
00:06recovered and 1,532 assorted ammunition was also recovered. We had 164
00:16kilograms of marijuana thus far and one kilogram of cocaine. Deputy Police
00:21Commissioner in charge of operations, Junior Benjamin, speaking about the
00:25police services most recent operations during the state of emergency in
00:29Trinidad and Tobago that began on December 30th of last year. The
00:33government has said that the state of emergency was called due to information
00:37it received from the TTPS that there was going to be heightened criminal
00:41activity with the use of high-velocity assault weapons and reprisal attacks
00:45between criminal gangs. You talked about firearms seized and so on
00:49like during the state of emergency and whatnot. Is there a point where possibly
00:54the public could expect the kind of large firearm seizures that may have
00:58happened maybe a year or two ago given the fact that the police service has
01:02these additional powers under the state of emergency and what I understand to be
01:06intelligence-led operations? That's my dream and I would make it an affirmation
01:12that you know it will happen but it will only happen if we have really the
01:20citizens, the law-abiding citizens working with the police in getting
01:24things done. DCP Benjamin earlier spoke about the TTPS's successes during the SOE.
01:30Of the 73 firearms that we had we must compare it to last year. Around this time
01:36we had 56. We have done a three-year average to guide us as to how much we
01:43should have now based on our last three years and we should be at least at 66.
01:48To date we have 71 and it shows that our officers are outside there and we are
01:55finding the firearms, we are seizing those firearms and we have seen an
01:59increase in the numbers of persons on a number of firearms that has been seized.
02:05TV6 News posed the question to DCP Benjamin about how the officers in the
02:10field are coping with the additional workload. In terms of the operations of
02:15the state of emergency, in terms of the police service, how things such as
02:19overtime, fatigue etc. being dealt with because I would imagine officers may be
02:24working longer or was that normal during this time? Yes, well we have been looking
02:30at that. We, in the midst of all that is happening, we tend to speak with all
02:37divisional commanders or divisional commanders. We have meetings with the
02:42ranks to ensure that at least we can deal with those matters where persons
02:46might need some small leave. Those things can be accommodated based on a
02:52case-by-case basis. DCP Benjamin said the TTPS has thus far conducted 1,953
02:58operations, targeted 1,731 priority offenders, conducted a 12,187 searches
03:06resulting in the arrests of 1,522 persons. DCP Benjamin also said morale in
03:12the police service is high. Jule Brown, TV6 News.
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