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The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice has clar­i­fied that of­fi­cers are re­quired to re­lease a ve­hi­cle if the dri­ver or per­son in con­trol ap­pears while the ve­hi­cle is be­ing hooked up to a wreck­er, pro­vid­ed the ve­hi­cle has not yet been re­moved from where it was parked.

The clar­i­fi­ca­tion comes af­ter a video cir­cu­lat­ed in De­cem­ber show­ing a woman plead­ing un­suc­cess­ful­ly with po­lice to re­lease her ve­hi­cle as it was about to be towed on Hart Street in Port-of-Spain near the Red House.

In a press re­lease, the TTPS said that where a ve­hi­cle has been hooked up or is in the ac­tu­al process of be­ing hooked up to a wreck­er, but has not been re­moved, and the dri­ver or per­son in con­trol si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly ap­pears and claims the ve­hi­cle, the of­fi­cer shall re­lease the ve­hi­cle to that per­son. The ser­vice said of­fi­cers are then re­quired to is­sue tick­ets for the of­fences com­mit­ted or pros­e­cute the dri­ver or per­son in charge for non-tick­et­ed of­fences.