At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie said Gov­ern­ment had “no choice” but to ad­vise the Pres­i­dent to de­clare a state of emer­gency, cit­ing an es­ca­la­tion in gang vi­o­lence, mass shoot­ings and cred­i­ble threats to pub­lic safe­ty.

Ad­dress­ing the na­tion in a rough­ly nine-minute speech on state broad­cast­er TTT with no oth­er me­dia present, AG Je­re­mie said re­cent days saw “a num­ber of vi­o­lent crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties… car­ried out by mem­bers of or­ga­nized crim­i­nal gangs”, in what he de­scribed as “the full gaze of a hor­ri­fied pop­u­la­tion”.

He said crim­i­nal gangs had in­creased acts of vi­o­lence “on a scale so ex­ten­sive” they re­sult­ed in mul­ti­ple deaths and mass shoot­ings, with in­tel­li­gence in­di­cat­ing the pat­tern was set to con­tin­ue.