What a terrible end!

At a time when people should have been preparing to celebrate life with their loved ones, commemorating the end of a year and the start of another, a group of individuals decided to come out with guns blazing, killing and wounding innocent people who were doing little more than just going about their ordinary business in the capital on Tuesday. Madness. This could have been far worse since, and not by any means being celebratory, the casualties were among those feeling the brunt of law enforcement.

But prior to that intervention, the gunmen demonstrated no concern for innocent bystanders, nor has come forward to expressed any feeling on their behalf prior to their demise for the families that are now left grieving. They had no care for the dreams, hopes, and ambitions they so ruthlessly snuffed out. They had no sympathy for the people who are today left to pick up the pieces, traumatised and fearful of doing ordinary things like walking to a taxi stand.

“This is the dark time,” Martin Carter wrote decades ago of Guyana. “It is the festival of guns, the carnival of misery.”

This is TT today.

At the same time, we have utmost sympathy and respect for the police officers who risk their lives to protect and serve us. In the coming days, as more details emerge, the nature of the actions taken by first responders will be properly appraised. In the meantime, we must express gratitude that the killing was contained and the rampage was not worse. We hope they were operating in a manner – including the use of bodycams – that is without question.

That’s little comfort, however, to those who are today grieving.

A full investigation of this incident must take place. Initial reports have, as always, drawn links between gang activity and these murders. The police must establish if this goes deeper. Fugitive assailants and associates must be detained. And the police’s own conduct must be examined by the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) which has the power to open probes as it sees fit.

This incident must not be allowed to overtake the efforts to bring life back to Port of Spain. Port of Spain Mayor Joel Martinez must continue to work closely with the authorities to review security in the city. As a nation, we cannot afford to politicise crime any longer. We have to wake up and smell the coffee: the blame game has not worked.

What happened on Tuesday is intolerable and requires the strongest possible response. There is no magic bullet, crime cannot end overnight. But we know enough to know that we need to take the guns away from criminals. And we need communities to win back the hearts and minds that have forgotten how to love.