Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5 welcome back. This time we've got a pretty interesting interview for you all. This gentleman who was with us before joins us again this morning. Let's welcome back to our program head of the Tunapuna Police Council. That's a new Buddhist. And good morning. Nice to have you with us here this morning. Once again, good morning, sir.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: It's always a pleasure to be on the morning Rumble.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: This morning our conversation goes back to a topic that has recent events have of course placed it on the front burner. Once again. There is, well, there always was concern when it comes to some of the attacks that we've seen. And I use the word attacks deliberately when it comes to business people. Recently we saw number of murders of business people under various circumstances. And it has raised once again the discussion are business people being deliberately targeted for one reason or the other or is this just par for the course in tandem with the crime wave that's washing over Trinidad and Tobago because the business groups have come out and we saw the murder of a businessman in San Fernando, another one in Chagonas last night. A businessman was shot and killed in Areema. He was a very small businessman, a punch man, but he's a businessman nonetheless.
And it has put the discussion once more in the front burner. So as somebody who's involved, what is the I don't want to say word on the ground, but is it the case where business people are being targeted one reason or the other, or is this just part of the overall crime wave that's washing over the country?
[00:01:52] Speaker B: Satish, what I will tell you this morning is that any person that is involved with liquid cash, be it a businessman, be it somebody who goes to the atm, be it somebody who's just doing a basic transaction doing buying and selling of a car or even property or whatever, once you come into contact with cash, you are a potential target to any miscreant.
You started before when you spoke about the killing of the businessmen. That started about two weeks ago. And I confirmed this morning with a senior officer that those three murders of the businessmen are before the homicide division. And at this point there's no indication that any sort of, I know everybody thinking that extortion, but there's no connection at this point in the investigation that extortion was the reason.
It's very unfortunate that businessmen have to go through this, but it should be told that every citizen is now a target, not only, I mean, businessmen, because of the access to Cash.
They might be more of a target, but anyone is a target.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I thought it interesting to put that into the discussion for some clarity, because there are some people who are suggesting that what we are seeing with some of these businessmen is part of an organized criminal attack on the business community. And I mean, I've been looking at the recent case, and I. I don't think so. I mean, no big investigator and all that kind of thing. It just seems as though the circumstances in each one was vastly different now, and as you said, there is no information to suggest that these people were targeted by the criminal element prior to them being killed or anything else, to suggest that it was the end result of some sort of attempt to get money from them or whatever else it was. Which is. Which is a totally different ballgame. Because we have. And we'll discuss that a bit. We have instances where people continue to say, look, this one trying to get money from me, and I want to approach me and the next and the other and all those kinds of things. But if you've been able to identify that it was not extortion, what was it?
[00:04:49] Speaker B: Well, there are a number of things that could be put into play. It could be a robbery, it could be personal vendetta. It could be a crime of opportunity.
It could be a planned crime.
We don't know. But these are all engaging the homicide division and they are doing their investigations.
And I know that sooner or later, things will become public as soon as it materialize.
[00:05:20] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a tough situation for us as a nation simply because we're coming up to the end of the year, and I think we're close to, if not almost on the cusp of 600 killing homicides. And, you know, you need to be careful with homicide and murder, using the terminology to make sure you get it right.
And overnight, I think there were two killings. The one with the punch man in Arima, and there's information that a man had his throat slit at Ram Rat and Maharaj Trace in Devi last night. So that's two it takes us up to, according to this homicide figure that's published by a social media practitioner. We're up to 596 now. 596, 600, 600 and something. Those are alarming statistics.
And we've spoken to the head of homicide and he has broken down for us in great detail these killings and how they are related and categories and all those kinds of things. From the information that you would have based on your involvement, what are the trends saying to us about all of these killings, who killing who and why.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: Status, a number of things. As I told you before, there are different crimes, but crime of opportunity is one of the biggest situations where you have murders taking place in the sense that people might be driving about and just looking for the vulnerable.
There are other situations where there's limited space. In Trinidad, we add in land to Trinidad.
Trinidad is not growing, so it means that turfs continue to remain the same in size, but our population and the amount of gang members are growing. So they are fighting amongst themselves and they're looking for different turfs to control and they're trying to take over each other's turf. And truth be told, they will not go and try to buy over a turf. For instance, the takeovers that took place between Bridens and the company in Jamaica where they brought over a company, when they are taking over a turf, they don't go into a turf and say, listen, we are offering you X amount for your turf. They are going to wipe out that tooth to take over that tooth.
And truth be told, that is what is happening. Trinidad is not growing in the sense of size wise, so that there's no additional space that they could go and start up there their business. They intend to take over somebody's stuff and they will go through whatever means illegally to do it. And if it means that they have to wipe out people to go to that extreme, that is the sort of crime that we are experiencing in Trinidad. Trinidad, the crime has evolved. It's not your simple little running of a block again. They want an entire turf and they will go to what extent to acquire it.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: So a lot of the killings that you see in may be people on that level.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: You know, it's.
The population has become desensitized very much to murders in that.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: They've become so commonplace that it no longer evokes the kind of shock that it should from a community.
And we've now seen in many instances there's video footage of some of these killings taking place. A video footage no longer seems to be a deterrent to murderers. The killing of this businessman in San Fernando when he was coming out of this compound next to Cross Crossing there, it should send shivers up the spine of every individual of how brutal that was, how simple it was for them to carry it out. And the fact that they've not been caught, which means that these very high powered weapons that they've been using out there and when we have discussions about crime, I say to people, yeah, we talk about how many people get killed. We don't speak about the killers because if, let's just say for easy discussions, we have 600 killings, we're not there yet, a couple shy.
We have a detection rate that is what, 8 or 10% or 12% or some kind of thing like that, which is 12, 6, 72 size 72 killings that have been, if all they've been refound persons, I don't want to say that they've been solved. But there are people who've been arrested and charged or whatever else in connection with 72, 500 and something murders have not been solved. Which means that the killers of those 500 and something people walking around free to carry out their nefarious activities. Again, we don't know if there are, if some people carry out multiple killings or if all of these killings were carried out by different people. And that statistic is one that should be alarming to citizens. But as I said, we don't seem to care. Again, unless it happens to us or it happens to somebody we know. It doesn't seem to affect us in the way in which I think that it should. So I know that last time you were here you spoke about some of the initiatives that were working in Tunapuna and they were supposed to be taken across the country. What is happening with that? What's the latest development?
[00:11:40] Speaker B: We continue to roll out the Eagle Eye project.
Up to Saturday, we launched the initiative in the Arauca area. We have the Trinity area up and running where our camera systems are working. And what I will tell you, the footage that you have been seeing, for instance, with the murder that took place in San Fernando last week with the gentleman who owns the pet shop.
If you look at that camera that was used, it is very difficult to even make out the number plate. It is difficult to make out facial recognition.
The cameras that we are using and placing on the roadway will recognize faces, will recognize number plates. And once the Eagle Eye is spread throughout the country, for instance, that incident that took place, if they didn't get footage when it was done and there were our cameras placed on the roadway by the businesses outside, if it was like that, they would have picked up that guy. I don't know if you recall the earlier part of this year when there was a kidnapping that took place in the Tunapuna district. Right. All the incident. But when that kidnapping took place, there were two sets of footage that was shown in the social media and in the public forum. And one was from the building opposite where it happened and one was from the building that it actually happened and that surface. Now what I will tell you is that that particular area, the Eagle Eye project is very prominent and they would have used the ttps, would have used the footage from the Eagle Eye and you know the result of what happened with that kidnapping. Yeah, the girl was released, people were neutralized and there are three people before the court for that matter.
So the Eagle Eye continue to show a positive result. It continued to show that it is a tool that the TTPS will use and could solve crime. What I will tell you is that larceny of vehicles was a big thing in the Tunapuna district. And now I'm not saying it is null and void, but we can see the decline because of the fact that our cameras are placed in strategic points where the national grid will not go into. Remember, we are going into the smaller areas, we are going into the little junctions and we could trace a vehicle. Now, 95% of the time when a crime is committed, a vehicle is involved. And if that vehicle could be traced further down the road and it could be found, you could get fingerprints. Because the majority of these individuals that have committed crimes, they are on the system with fingerprints, they are on the system with faces. And even if they put on a mask or they cover them, their faces with a hoodie, somewhere down the line they're going to take it off and our cameras will pick them up.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: You know what you're, what you're raising. There's a point that I've raised numerous times, even raised it with officials from the police service. I remember having a discussion with a gentleman from the stolen vehicles. I think he was from the stolen vehicles unit and there were 700 and something vehicles stolen for the half of the year. Whatever it was, I was asking the question, I mean the bandits and emders use the same road we use and the majority of the cases when they use our vehicles as stolen vehicles. And I suggested in the discussions that if we were able to get stolen vehicles just after they were taken, you would domino effect impact directly on a criminal's ability to commit crime? Because there was one case some time ago where they took a vehicle from Karapi Chima on Saturday night and used it in a number of crimes Saturday night into Sunday. And it's only when they went to some business place in Aranguez and the businessman put some lead on a couple of them that it was identified that this vehicle was taken from wherever and used in all of these crimes. So if what you're suggesting is a real breakthrough in being able to identify stolen vehicles, that's a step in the right direction. But there's a question. If there are so many positives coming out of this Eagle Eye project, why can't we move with greater haste to implement it across the country?
Why this phased approach that seems to be taking so long when, from what you're saying, there is evidence that this thing can effectively deal with a lot of the problems we have? Why taking so long?
[00:17:08] Speaker B: Well, it's not that it's taken long, but it's a process. Remember, we have to go house to house or business to business, and each person has to be dealt with individually. That's one. Secondly, because of the sensitivity of the project, we can just bring in 100 contractors to start installing. Remember, we have people going into people's houses. All these people have to be vetted by the ttps. And there's only a certain amount of people that could be rolled out at a point in time. One of the other problems that we were faced with is that we had equipment that came in and we had to wait on the port.
Then another problem, like the rest of the country, we had issues with accessing Forex. Remember, these cameras and all these systems are not produced in Trinidad. We have to bring it in. The company that I work in collaboration with that is doing the install, they have to bring it in and they have the same problems like anybody else having with Forex and all these things. But what I will tell you is that we are rolling and we are rolling faster than anticipated. I must say that any community that we go into, they are welcoming it, they are encouraging it.
So we continue as I set a rule. But we do face constraints because as I said before, we just can't wanna hire people and say, going to Tom, Dick and Harry house, we have to get them vetted by the ttps, make sure that they're on board, make sure that they will do the correct thing. This is something technical that is happening. It's not just you have connections to be made. We have to connect to the Internet, we have to send it back to our feeders. You know, there's a lot of technical work. So it's not just your regular joke could come and do these things.
Yeah. One of the things you were talking about before, which is the last thing you have, vehicles. We are encouraging people to install the GPS systems in your vehicles because this is proven to work as an additional tool for the ttps. Just like the Eagle Eye gps, working with the TTPS now to find vehicles immediately, because what you find happening when they Steal a vehicle, they will take it into an area called a cool down area and they will park the vehicle there and leave it for a period of time.
And if the vehicle is found, maybe it has a GPS on it, it link them to the air. But if they realize after a certain amount of time is not found, they will go and move it from there and start to use it. So we are encouraging citizens who are buying vehicles to now install GPS on their vehicles.
It is very important. And there are companies that, you know, people could call me, I could recommend that are very, very reasonable. You would not believe how cheap it could become for a simple GPS that will locate your vehicle. You don't have to have all the nice additives where, you know, different things you could add on their accessories, but the simple cost could be as low as 6, 700 a year.
Yes. On your, on your vehicle to actually find it back, you know, one of these, that we have to make ourselves a hard target. We have to make our vehicles a hard target. Yeah, the onus is upon us. You know, the TTPS is there to work for us. I agree. But we as citizens, we have to make ourselves a hard target. And I said that on a program here before.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: Mm, yeah, it's, it's, there's evidence to suggest that there are tremendous benefits to this GPS and tracking your vehicle and all those things. For the obvious reason, it, it does work. We've seen, you know, the stories on social media and the various companies, when they go to the get vehicles and everything else, they publish it up. Unfortunately, we have a society where it is difficult to get people to do things that are for their own benefit. In many instances it real hard sometimes to get people to do what should be done.
It's only when problems come then you're looking to see if you could get solutions and all those kinds of things. And in some instances it may be too late. So we've spoken about that on the program as well. You know, about taking these preactive measures, these proactive, proactive measures to safeguard yourself. We're almost out of time for the interview, but we're into the Christmas season and we know that at this point in time there is heightened activity all over the place. And I know that the last time you were here and you're speaking again about making yourself a hard target. But as we wrap up this morning, let me allow you to advise our listeners. I mean the information is widely published, it's in the public domain already. People should know all these things. But still, a reminder, tell people Advise people some of the things they should and should not do for this season.
[00:22:59] Speaker B: I'll touch on one thing, Satish, before I leave. The TTPS has started a program from the 5th of December running to the 24th of December in the North Central division, which is the police Youth club and the mediation center in St. Joseph.
It is a area that has been designated to become a safe zone.
It is open for the public that when you see these nice items that might be for sale at really cheap prices on the Internet.
Right. That you can go to that area and conduct your transaction in a safe zone with police looking over your transaction. Meaning that if somebody advertise a car, you could now go to that area which I now told you about and transact your business on that compound in a safe zone. So they have created a safe zone for the Christmas because of the amount of reports of fraudulent activities on the Internet. And I'll tell you that it is underutilized at this point.
People need to use it. So they're going on the social media and saying how they have been robbed and they have been this and they have been that, but they are not utilizing the TTPS services.
The extortion situation, instead of going on social media and saying that you're being extorted, you are being approached. Go to the TTPS and get the help. Right up to last week, two people were charged for extortion and they're before the court with no bail from a construction company in Vancouver. That was up to last week.
So things are happening. We have to continue to partner with the ttps.
We have to continue to be vigilant. We have to continue to make ourselves hard targets. As I told you, Mr. Mahabir, I could come on one of your programs and just talk about how to make yourself a hard target. The social media is something that you should not go and advertise things on.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: Yeah, correct.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: A simple thing of advertising. Your dog ran away and you offering a reward. They would look at that. If you could offer a reward for a dog, you have money and they will call you.
You understand? People, the. The crime is evolving.
They are becoming more and more up to date and we have to become more and more up to date with our system and our personal security.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: That's what we're gonna have to. That's where we're gonna have to leave it this morning. I want to thank you for being with us here once again this morning and giving us this valuable information. Always an interesting discussion and we. Yeah, we will have that discussion. Probably not before the end of the year, maybe early in the new year, about people being able to safeguard themselves. My pleasure having you on the program once again.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: Thank you again, sir.
[00:26:32] Speaker A: And that's how we end our interview here this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, a couple messages. The best insight, instant feedback, accountability, the all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5.
