Almost 200 people arrested in 20 days in Trinidad

(Trinidad Guardian) A to­tal of 156 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed dur­ing Op­er­a­tion Strike Back II ex­er­cis­es, in­clud­ing 45 sus­pects want­ed by po­lice for var­i­ous of­fences.

The ex­er­cis­es were con­duct­ed over the past 20 days.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease, the ex­er­cis­es took place in four Polic­ing Di­vi­sions of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) be­tween the pe­ri­od Sep­tem­ber 24 2019 and Oc­to­ber 13 2019.

The ex­er­cis­es were con­duct­ed in the North East­ern, North­ern, Port-of-Spain and West­ern Di­vi­sions.

In a re­lease is­sued by the TTPS, a to­tal of 48 ex­er­cis­es were con­duct­ed across the four di­vi­sions dur­ing the pe­ri­od, which re­sult­ed in the dis­cov­ery and seizure of sev­en firearms and 56 rounds of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion, along with 251.4 grammes of mar­i­jua­na and 16 grammes of co­caine.

Po­lice al­so ex­e­cut­ed a to­tal of 42 war­rants and con­duct­ed 27 road­block ex­er­cis­es dur­ing the pe­ri­od.

The po­lice ser­vice said Op­er­a­tion Strike Back II is a joint strate­gic in­ter-agency op­er­a­tion be­tween the TTPS and the T&T De­fence Force.

It added joint op­er­a­tions con­tin­ue to be con­duct­ed na­tion­wide on a 24-hour ba­sis, specif­i­cal­ly in ar­eas that are prone to gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

Mean­while, po­lice have held 31 peo­ple in con­nec­tion with var­i­ous sex­u­al of­fences and mar­i­jua­na pos­ses­sion.

The ex­er­cise al­so formed part of ‘Op­er­a­tion Strike Back II’ and was ex­e­cut­ed across all nine polic­ing di­vi­sion, Thurs­day.

The East­ern Di­vi­sion saw the high­est num­ber of ar­rests—eight, fol­lowed by the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion which saw five peo­ple be­ing held.

Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, 29 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed over­all for com­mit­ting var­i­ous sex­u­al of­fences against chil­dren and two were ar­rest­ed for pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na. The sus­pects who ranged from ages 19 to 52 were tak­en in­to po­lice cus­tody pend­ing fur­ther en­quiries and charges.