Smaller crowd at Plymouth's J'Ouvert

TOBAGO police said Plymouth’s J’Ouvert and Ole Time Mas on July 27 was incident-free.

A senior police officer, who spoke to Newsday several times during the event, said, “The Plymouth J’Ouvert has been without incident. There was nothing that the police can report. There was nothing, no violence. What we noticed is that fewer people attended than in previous years.

The policeman said officers had been on road exercises since 2 am.

“We had many road exercises, roadblocks throughout that period in which we monitored people leaving and entering the area,” he said.

Plymouth has traditionally been known for its huge J’Ouvert celebration during the Tobago Heritage Festival.

Police intensified their road exercises at the start of the weekend.

On July 26, scores of commuters were left stranded for hours in Scarborough as police randomly checked vehicles for narcotics and ammunition. Licensing officers also did checks at strategic points in the capital city, including Milford Road and along the Claude Noel Highway.

The exercises continued on July 27 with road check exercises in Crown Point, a haven for domestic travellers. Police and licensing officers were seen on the old Store Bay Local Road, just outside Church’s Chicken, Pigeon Point Junction and at Penny Savers Supermarket, Canaan.

Many regarded the stop-and-search exercises as an inconvenience.

However, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Operations) Junior Benjamin said the initiatives were necessary to weed out priority offenders through what he called "in-your-face policing."

He urged citizens to cooperate with the police to ensure success.

Police officers from the Inter-Agency Task Force, Guard and Emergency Branch and other units are in Tobago as part of a strategy to reduce murders and other gun-related crimes on the island.

Tobago has to date recorded 16 murders for 2024.

Meanwhile, police are investigating a shooting incident at Garden Side, Scarborough, on July 26.

The victim, Ezra Sylvester, was shot in the neck, but is said to be in a stable condition at the Scarborough General Hospital.

Benjamin said officers are pursuing two suspects linked to the crime.