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The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go says mi­nors de­tained un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE) are well tak­en care of while in cus­tody, fol­low­ing ques­tions sur­round­ing the de­ten­tion of a 16-year-old boy un­der the spe­cial pow­ers re­cent­ly.

Teenag­er Jay­lon George is cur­rent­ly be­ing held at the Youth Train­ing and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (YTRC) un­der a pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion or­der (PDO). Au­thor­i­ties al­lege he was iden­ti­fied through con­fi­den­tial in­tel­li­gence as a mem­ber of the Ras­ta City/Sev­en Gang. He was de­scribed in the PDO as a “shoot­er” with ac­cess to high-pow­ered firearms and in­volve­ment in plans for im­mi­nent re­tal­ia­to­ry at­tacks.

How­ev­er, his par­ents, Mar­lon Ward and Lis­lles George, claim he is in­no­cent and was mere­ly lim­ing with a group of his friends at the time of his ar­rest on March 7. The po­lice ar­rest­ed four of the five peo­ple in the group and charged them with pos­ses­sion of a weapon.