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With the Christ­mas and Car­ni­val sea­sons ap­proach­ing, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Op­er­a­tions), Suzette Mar­tin, is as­sur­ing cit­i­zens that it is safe to shop and at­tend pub­lic events.

De­spite mur­ders and vi­o­lence con­tin­u­ing dur­ing the cur­rent State of Emer­gency (SoE), Mar­tin said long-stand­ing pat­terns show pe­ri­ods of high­er and low­er mur­der ac­tiv­i­ty. She was speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia dur­ing a walk­a­bout with of­fi­cers from the Pe­nal Po­lice Sta­tion, the lead­er­ship of the South West­ern Di­vi­sion, and mem­bers of the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions yes­ter­day.

Yes­ter­day, the TTPS re­port­ed a 41 per cent de­crease in mur­ders from 2024 for the same pe­ri­od, a re­duc­tion of 227 mur­ders. Dur­ing a par­lia­men­tary de­bate on Oc­to­ber 31, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie said T&T had ben­e­fit­ed from a re­duc­tion in mur­der and oth­er se­ri­ous crimes as a re­sult of the SoE. Last week, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der re­port­ed 4,494 of­fences be­tween May and Sep­tem­ber 2025, with 1,504 of them de­tect­ed. He pro­vid­ed a month­ly break­down show­ing fluc­tu­a­tions in re­port­ed crimes and said the fig­ures would guide the roll­out of the gov­ern­ment’s ten-point crime plan.