“For the TTPS to waddle into 2017 expecting that the murder rate will suddenly change simply on the grounds that the calendar did, is as naive and reckless as those who relied on ‘prayer’ as the best crime plan; even setting aside a day exclusively for this purpose.” The following …
Read More »Defence Force and T&T Futsal captain’s brother, “Choko” Balthazar, murdered in Laventille
Sherwin “Choko” Balthazar, the younger brother of Trinidad and Tobago National Futsal star and Defence Force football club captain Jerwyn Balthazar, was among four men murdered in Beverly Hills, Laventille on Friday. Balthazar, according to the Trinidad Guardian report, was described as a “gang leader” by the police. He owned …
Read More »Letter to the editor: Stale noose! Murder rate needs objective solutions not raw emotion
The following Letter to the Editor on the emotive response to the murder of Shannon Banfield was submitted to Wired868 by Kenna Clarke: “Bring back the noose!” is the sentiment expressed by many following the murder of Shannon Banfield. Her tragic death shook us to our core. If a young and innocent …
Read More »From Akiel to Shannon: Why T&T doesn’t catch murderous predators
From the buggery murder of Akiel Chambers, aged 11, last seen at a children’s party in an upscale house in Maraval, to the smothering of Shannon Banfield, aged 20, last believed to be in a store in Charlotte Street, there are continuous lines of slackness and callous indifference. Both Akiel …
Read More »Structural adjustment needed: Daly comments on spiralling murder rate and road fatalities
As asserted before, it is gross inadequacies at the macro level of political thinking and action that have inevitably produced and made worse the problems besetting us. The political parties need to re-think their deep inadequacies. They have us entangled in a nasty web of wanton murder, impunity for killers, …
Read More »How many more must die before we take back T&T?
“As citizens, we have been gun-whipped, shell-shock and shellacked into submission by these ‘monsters’, who roam night and day seeking out their next victim. They have shattered our once peaceful existence and turned us into persons who are distrustful, skeptical and paranoid.” The following Letter to the Editor on Trinidad …
Read More »The real issues with our crime “plan”: Daly says politicians too busy supping with the devil
The respective teams led by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition met two Fridays ago on violent crime. The main promise afterward was that there would be co-operation on anti crime legislation, including the Government giving the Opposition early notice of the Bills it intended to introduce …
Read More »Lead, or shut up! Raffique challenges Rowley to lift his game as T&T prime minister
I don’t know what plans he has for his vacation, but I strongly recommend to Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley that he spend all of it in solitary self-confinement seeking guidance from whatever deity or deities he believes in regarding his leadership capabilities. I don’t care whether it’s an ashram, …
Read More »20th Century cops versus 21st Century criminals? Heerah knocks Robocop response
Former National Operations Centre (NOC) executive director Garvin Heerah writes a Letter to the Editor on the “loose talk” emanating from the Police Service in the aftermath of the shooting death of Selwyn “Robocop” Alexis: We can do much better than this! To attack the out-of-control situation with homicides in …
Read More »Bleeding in the Senate and in the street; and the link between the two
The Independent Senators appointed by the President of the Republic are currently in the news for all the wrong reasons. One of them, albeit a temporary one, has responded obscenely to criticism, including deployment of lurid phrases, which I decided not to quote. The said President has on occasion shown …
Read More »Gap between intelligence and action: why SSA probably won’t help war on crime
Really, it does not bother me that the Strategic Service Agency (SSA), or any other State intelligence agency, from the AIA to the ZIA, might want to peep through my back door, monitor what I am writing now, check my email before I do, or listen in on my telephone …
Read More »Live Wire: Slowpoke acting CoP, Dr Rowley’s violent diagnosis and the Duke’s Hazard
Is there a fine for slow brain movement in the fast lane? Should there be? Acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams might have sparked another round of road rage for Trinidad and Tobago motorists yesterday, as he offered a moral lecture to local drivers about their dissatisfaction with the 80 km/h …
Read More »