Daly Bread: T&T’s murderous trail of 2024 into 2025

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley gave a superficial description of our country’s state of narco-infiltrated crime to the media on Friday last before his melodramatic announcement of his intended resignation from office as prime minister “before the end of the legal limits of this term” and his departure from electoral politics.

Regarding his intending departure, is it (as hinted in my column of 22 December 2024) that when Dr Rowley resigns as prime Minister an attempt will be made to deploy section 76(1)(a) of the Constitution to appoint as prime minister a member of the House of Representatives, other than Dr Rowley, who will be put forward as the leader of the party which commands the support of the majority of members of that House?

Many persons fervently wish to leave 2024 behind, but the old year is doggedly trailing us into the new after nearly two decades of omission by both major political parties, when in government, to take any meaningful responsibility for violent crime.

This omission has ensured that we would be endlessly trailed into yet another New Year by the horror, grief and fear of violent crime.

The People’s National Movement (PNM) Government, having been at the forefront of that omission, declared a state of emergency (SOE) on the morning of Monday last, 30 December 2024, which is now an official signpost on the trail into 2025.

The PNM, under Dr Rowley, has finally followed in the SOE footstep of the United National Congress (UNC) dominated, so-called People’s Partnership (PP) Government, of 2010 to 2015.  That Government bombastically declared a SOE in August 2011, which produced no significant long-term results.

What is the purpose of the current SOE and how is it likely to play out?

The Government itself has stated the narrow purpose of this SOE. It was, according to acting Attorney General Stuart Young, called in an attempt to combat “an immediate increase” in criminal gang related “reprisal shootings using high-powered assault weapons on a scale so extensive that it threatens persons and will endanger public safety”.

As this situation was building and doing so in a brazen manner, was the anti-gang legislation a hindrance as the Commissioner of Police now says it is? (See Newsday 2 January 2025.)

Let us also recall that the huge influx of weapons has come in through the legal ports for which the government and government agencies have responsibility, especially for their incompetence in failing to provide, maintain and effectively use scanning and surveillance facilities.

So what’s new other than the scale of the particular round of reported fatal gang warfare waged over a few days preceding the declaration of the SOE on Monday morning?

Perhaps, in expressing concern for the public, the PNM has newly walked away from the dismissive utterance of former PNM Prime Minister Manning that the gunshot death of a person outside Movietowne was “collateral damage”.

These columns of mine have repeatedly set out what I regard as the core issues of violent crime and they are recorded in the two volumes of the Daly Commentaries.

I fully agree with commentators, such as criminologist Dr Randy Seepersad, that the SOE does not address the core issues of violent crime. For that reason, as well as the history of discriminatory implementation of the SOE powers, I also do not feel the sycophantic joy of the chambers of commerce over this latest declaration of an SOE.

The 2011 SOE left untouched so-called big fish operating at the intersection of politics, questionable influences and the underground economy. What will happen this time?

Without a curfew, roadblocks may somewhat restrict murderers moving under the protective cover of darkness and pre-emptive searches of property may also disrupt intended killings. However, while any decrease in killings is welcome, roadblocks and searches cannot prevent murderous hits, as vividly seen since the declaration of the SOE.

Perhaps the committed members of the police service will prevail over the elements that undermine them and we will have an historic turnaround. Otherwise when this SOE ends, will it be back to “normal” killing—and will we eventually reach over 700 murders per year, as the astute Dr Seepersad projected?

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Martin Daly

Martin G Daly SC is a prominent attorney-at-law. He is a former Independent Senator and past president of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago.
He is chairman of the Pat Bishop Foundation and a steelpan music enthusiast.