Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 16/11/2025 10:29

Crime respects no politician

First, I agree with Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s action against unbearable noise which severely troubles lawful residents. This is another controversial issue with two sides. The government must be prepared to pay the political cost, if any, by protecting, law-abiding citizens first of all. The perpetual cries of Woodbrook residents also need attention now. The entire country is already terribly troubled by crime. To have some citizens troubled by disturbing noise is just too much. Somebody’s fun and profit cannot be at the expense of another person’s peace and privacy – check the Constitution. More serious is the deadly disturbance of crime, especially the more frightening ones like murder, kidnapping and home invasions. Every morning as soon as you get up you hear or read about a brutal crime committed against some person or family. Last Friday morning I read the headline, “Shattered lives,” the story about the sorrows of a grieving family whose 63-year-old “loving, hard-working” patriarch, Vishnu Lalla, was kidnapped and brutally murdered two weeks ago. Once again, the tragic message is clear: a crime against a person goes beyond that person. That’s it. When an innocent person is murdered, it kills the soul of an entire family. The pain and grief shake up the entire family. It is secondary victimisation. Last week, Marvin Hamilton, 45, uncle of Minister of Culture and Community Development Michelle Benjamin, was murdered along Moruga Road. One headline was “Minister mourns uncle’s death in senseless ‘act of violence.’” Benjamin’s grief was expressed this way: “A father, a son, a friend, my uncle lost his life. Why was my uncle murdered? Why does another family have to endure this kind of pain? Our family is broken.” There was sorrow before for a Moruga murder. On December 29, 2024, after Stacy Gopaulsingh was hacked to death in Moruga, this column was headlined, “Michelle, Moruga and Murders.” The murder rate at that time was 612 – record-breaking. Michelle Benjamin, then MP for Moruga/Tableland, cried, shedding tears, as she explained, not only for the murdered wife and judicial officer, Gopaulsingh, but “for all other murdered persons in my constituency and the country.” At that time, too, PM Dr Keith Rowley said this country “is still a blessed land.” He blissfully added: “This (Christmas) moment is special because we go beyond life’s challenges and suffering to search and pray for new, hopeful solutions and meanings.” This column then wrote: “This is exactly what citizens from all parties have been doing last year and years before” – without success. Commenting again after Gopaulsingh’s December 2024 murder, Benjamin said: “This latest criminal incident was even more heart-breaking as it occurred in Poui Trace – the same community where Enrico Guerra and his five-year-old daughter were brutally murdered in July…a grim reminder of the escalating violence plaguing the (Moruga) community.” Ms Benjamin then complained: “It is unacceptable that the Ministry of National Security continues to neglect our constituency.” Benjamin’s expressed grief in December 2024 and now in November 2025 suggests a sad political story. That is, crime and murder haunt whichever government, PNM or UNC, is in power. And the government, its ministers and police, will again be scrambling for effective remedies. Gun amnesty? Haven’t we learnt anything? Two weeks ago, after a violent home invasion hit 53-year-old Vijay Ragoonanan and his family near to the PM’s Siparia home she called for “harder work by the police.” For a long time now, criminals have been showing no respect or even fear of our politicians. In fact, they have shown no fear or respect for the police, the courts or even the prisons. They too seem to know about their inefficiency and ineffectiveness. Three weeks ago, CoP Allister Guevarro sincerely announced he would do an “audit” of the police service. Last week, Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander announced a “restructuring” of the service. Why don’t ACP Anand Ramesar, head of the Counter Trafficking Unit Allan Meiguel, former CoP Erla Harewood-Christopher and former DCP Harold Phillip talk to Alexander and Guevarro? As committee members, explain to them something called the 600-page report of the Cabinet-appointed Police Manpower Audit Committee, which contained about 100 recommendations. Recycling has become a boring and expensive exercise. We thought the new UNC government had changed all that. The post Crime respects no politician appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.