TRINIDAD – Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith is urg­ing all ac­tive po­lice of­fi­cers to turn out for work on Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day, not based on con­se­quences, but be­cause of “pa­tri­o­tism and an an­swer to the call to du­ty”.

A to­tal of 6,000 of­fi­cers are ex­pect­ed to re­port for du­ty across the coun­try dur­ing the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od, with some 1,600 po­lice of­fi­cers be­ing ros­tered to work in the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion, to pro­vide blan­ket se­cu­ri­ty for the dis­trict over the next two days.

In a state­ment, the CoP has al­so giv­en the as­sur­ance to all of­fi­cers that Car­ni­val leave for which all of­fi­cers are en­ti­tled, will be grant­ed. Grif­fith al­so com­mend­ed all the of­fi­cers “for their un­stint­ing per­for­mance and ded­i­ca­tion to du­ty,” while en­cour­ag­ing oth­ers to al­so come out and give the sup­port that is nec­es­sary to make the 2019 fes­tiv­i­ties the safest ever. Re­gard­ing safe­ty, po­lice are again ap­peal­ing to mas­quer­aders and spec­ta­tors to stay away from large trucks in mo­tion dur­ing Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions.

Mean­while, cit­i­zens plan­ning on vis­it­ing the coun­try’s beach­es and rivers in the days dur­ing Car­ni­val and un­til Ash Wednes­day can ex­pect to see an in­creased po­lice pres­ence as mu­nic­i­pal po­lice will be de­ployed to as­sist with Car­ni­val safe­ty ef­forts.Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Kaz­im Ho­sein as­sured that the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice of­fi­cers will be out in full force, en­sur­ing that beach-go­ers and tourists alike feel safe and se­cure when vis­it­ing ma­jor beach­es.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]