It’s no secret that I’m not a big fan of the local news media, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t pay close attention to the goings on. After all, as Thomas Jefferson probably never said, “An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.”

I want to be free. So, every morning, I get up and skim the news. Then, I rant about what I’ve read. If the story is egregious enough, I mosey on over to this blog and spend an inordinate amount of time crafting a too-long post detailing all the ways in which this place doh make sense. Recently, it occurred to me that I could just cut out the middleman and round up the news here. That way, I could keep a little archive for when I feel like putting together a longer post instead of having to search my increasingly poor memory to remember which ancient news story is relevant to the bachanal of the day.

So, here goes. The first-ever fwiw News Roundup (the name could use some work, I know) on Tuesday, 11th June, 2024, featuring whatever caught my eye in the news today:

Robbery Victim Stands His Ground, Shoots a Nearby Minor

I’ve long thought that a certain subset of Trinidadians are dedicated to turning our nation into Florida Jr., and the opposition leader’s ongoing “stand your ground” rhetoric seems to confirm it.

Anyone with sense has seen enough of the news coming out of the good old US of A to know that you can’t solve a gun problem by sprinkling more guns on it, but she’s still getting up on a platform every week and invoking the language of the 1990 coup to encourage more shootings, so clearly she’s not moved. Mr. One Shot, One Kill is right behind her, swearing it was actually his idea to put more guns on the streets in the first place.

Today, we received our very own example of why our crime situation can’t be fixed by arming civilians.

The incident took place just after 8 a.m. on the Eastern Main Road.

Police said a customer went to the First Citizens bank to deposit cash.

Before he could do so, he was confronted by an armed assailant.

The suspect, who was brandishing a firearm, attempted to grab the bag that containing the undisclosed quantity of cash.

But the customer threw the bag, and the suspect ran to pick it up off the ground.

The customer then pulled out a firearm and fired shots at the suspect.

But instead, the bullet hit a teenager standing nearby. The suspect fled the scene.

Alexander Bruzual. Depositor’s bullets miss bandit outside bank…Bystander hit by ‘stray’. 11th June, 2024. Express

Leaving aside the ongoing questions about whether randos were able to buy firearm licenses under the reign of Mr. One Shot, One Kill himself, I feel like we know enough about ourselves and have seen enough from others to know that your society doesn’t get safer when any old body is free to pull a deadly weapon and fire wildly when threatened.

I don’t know about allyuh, but I personally have no interest in living in Redwood City.

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Fitzgerald Hinds Aims to Star in Another Edition of Politicians Say the Darndest Things

I never did get an answer to my question about the purpose of a government minister, but I’ve always kind of assumed that they can at least handle public speaking. I mean, they don’t have to have direct experience in their portfolio and they’re not the ones doing the work, so they should at least be able to stand in front of a mic and say something that sounds ministerial, right?

Wrong.

National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds says the news of a teenager being killed by another teen yesterday made him cringe.

Responding to the killing of 15-year-old Christian Lashley, allegedly by another 15-year-old child, however, Hinds took the community to task.

He said while he did not have the official police report, he believed onlookers may have been able to prevent the fatality.

“Chances are in that fight or play fight, big people might have been around and either afraid or unwilling to get involved. The community has a role to play, parents have a role to play,” Hinds said.

Polo, Dareece. Hinds disturbed at high level of youth violence. 11th June, 2024. Guardian.

If I wanted to be charitable, I’d say that he meant to say he “winced” at the news, rather than “cringed,” but as the Minister of National Security in a time where citizens feel like they’re under siege (and our Commissioner of Police has been eerily quiet), perhaps he should be opting for stronger language to describe his reaction to the senseless loss of a child.

Not too strong, though, or he might make random assertions about what went wrong immediately after admitting that he hand’t bothered to read the police report first.

I suppose we should thank him for his service as a living reminder of the fact that, however unqualified we might feel for our individual jobs, we’re not “constantly embarrassing ourselves on a national platform” unqualified.

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Big, Hardback Man Endangers Toddler On Jones, Apparently

I doh have no cutesy description for this one. A 50-year-old man left his three-year-old asleep in his car in a basement carpark for at least 20 minutes to take his other two kids for eye tests. The cops found the toddler screaming and crying, as she OBVIOUSLY would be when she awoke to find herself alone in a car in the relative dark.

Initial reports stated that acting ASP Roland Ramlogan arrived at the carpark of a shopping establishment around 3.30 pm Sunday in his private capacity, and heard the child screaming and crying.

He approached a Nissan AD wagon with the windows halfway down and saw the child in the back seat crying uncontrollably. He contacted the Southern Division Control Room and requested assistance. The senior officer then instructed a female security officer to take the child out of the car. While she was consoling the child, the father arrived about 20 minutes later with his two other daughters.

The officer identified himself to the father and informed him of the offence of child endangerment. The father claimed that he left the child sleeping and went with his two other children to do eye tests “upstairs.”   

Officers of the La Romain Police Post also arrived at the scene.  Up to yesterday afternoon, the father was still in police custody being questioned.

Wilson, Sascha. Debe dad held after daughter, 3, left alone in car. 10th June 2024. Guardian

That is the kind of madness you do when you don’t recognise your child’s humanity and this is how children get seriously hurt. Charge him.

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Fully-Grown Adult Pretends Not to Know How Childrearing Works

I need adults in this place to be just the tiniest bit serious. We cannot lament the violence in T&T and pretend not to understand why violence is occurring amongst our youth. We simply must pick a struggle.

Enterprise South/Longdenville North councillor Brenda John yesterday questioned what is happening in society.

“What is happening with all youths and Central, what is the hate and anger that is built up now? We need to be on the ground, we need to be on the ground with these people and not in high places. They say was his attitude in school, they said they don’t like him and this is one of the reasons. Imagine that somebody don’t like you, they want to kill you.”

John called on National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds to “please wake up from your slumber and see what is happening in central.”

“We need more police posts in Central. We need more vehicles,” she said.

Dowlat, Rhondor. Suspect turns self in after teen stabbed to death. 11th June 2024. Guardian.

These children aren’t being raised in a vacuum and they aren’t raising themselves. The question is not “what is happening with all youths,” it’s “what is happening with the adults?” We didn’t become more caring and compassionate in the wake of Covid and this wasn’t a pacifist society beforehand.

If we actually want to help the youth, the first thing we need to do is grow up and face facts.

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Ministers Still Struggling to Play Well With Others

Maybe all the MPs who can’t get Rohan Sinanan to take them on should form a support group. Or a union. Or a music group. They should do something because their constituents are suffering and I can’t figure out what they want the media to do for them that they can’t do for themselves inside the Red House.

In a media release, Haynes Alleyne said, “This road collapse has been a major issue for more than two years. What started off as a depression was not properly addressed when brought to the Ministry of Works’ attention. Only after raising the issue in the Parliament and in the media on multiple occasions, despite issuing letters to the Minister, were temporary repair works conducted.” 

The Tabaquite MP said concerns regarding the scope and execution of the required road rehabilitation were raised.

[…]

At the start of this year, the MOWT published in the newspaper that this road collapse, along with other urgent landslips in Tabaquite, would be addressed within this fiscal year. Unfortunately, delays in execution have resulted in the matter worsening rather than being improved.” 

Sambrano, Chester. MP Haynes Alleyne appeals for work to be done on collapsed roadway. 10th June. 2024

You know what it is to beg your MP for help for years and then see them begging on your behalf in the paper? When they sit next to or across from the man who is responsible for our nation’s infrastructure? And it’s a different one nearly every week, eh. Ah shame.

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The Girls are TTPS is Fighting Again

In other law-enforcement news, the girls are fighting again. By which I mean 115 TTPS officers are still fighting over the glitch that handed undeserved promotions to 29 officers last year.

High Court Judge Margaret Mohammed has granted leave to 115 police constables to challenge a decision by Police Commissioner Erla Harewood-Christopher to promote several officers ahead of them in a matter that created controversy within the T&T Police Service.

The officers are contending that the decision to promote 29 officers, who were named in the judicial review lawsuit, ahead of them, is unlawful. The constables are further claiming that 29 officers on the comparative merit list scored less than them but got promoted due to a computer glitch.

The officers, via their legal action, are seeking a court order compelling Harewood-Christopher to retroactively promote them to corporal as of September 29, 2023.

The matter stemmed from the promotion of 896 constables to the rank of corporal from the TTPS Order of Merit List published on September 28, 2023. Having received information that the merit list contained errors, the officers requested from the Police Commissioner the individual scores for each officer through a Freedom of Information Act application. Their request was denied and that matter is engaging the court’s attention in a separate claim.

Due to the errors on the Merit List, a new comparative merit list was produced in January and 29 officers were erroneously promoted.

Diaz, Abraham. 115 officers set to challenge CoP Erla on promotions list. 11th June, 2024. Guardian

I’m honestly not too fussed about it, I’m sure everybody will get their much-deserved promotions in the end. It’s just interesting that so much is swirling around the TTPS and the CoP remains so silent about it all. Lord knows if it was Double G, he’d be all over the airwaves making noise… you know what, never mind. It’s fine. The silence is golden.

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WASA Walks a PR Tightrope

It’s not easy when you’re responsible for handling communications after your organisation’s failure to follow health and safety protocols allegedly results in a death. You can’t admit liability, but you also can’t pretend nothing happened. So, what can you do?

“WASA’s internal investigation into the incident identified a number of procedural and safety deficiencies in the conduct and execution of the job, and the Authority has been in consultation with its attorneys to get legal direction on the matter,” the release stated.

The Authority reported that immediately after the October fatality, WASA’s board of commissioners “launched an immediate investigation into the incident and instructed the WASA’s executive team to take immediate steps to ensure all health and safety processes and procedures were adopted and adhered to without exception.”

Etienne, Kern. WASA: Safety better after October death. 10th June 2024. Express.

You can focus on how you’ve beefed up your safety protocols since “the incident” and keep it pushing, I guess.

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Still Just Thoughts and Prayers for BACTE Teachers

Since the news broke last month that the Bishop Anstey Association (BAA), the Ministry of Education, and the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) were busy negotiating the future of Bishop Anstey and Trinity College East (BATCE) without the involvement of the teachers, those same teachers have been on edge, waiting to find out if they’ll still be employed come September. Since then, we’ve heard the Anglican Bishop’s assurances that they have the teachers’ best interests at heart and conflicting statements from the MoE and the BAA about whether they have reached any kind of agreement at all. A couple of days ago, the Anglican Bishop returned to say… well, nothing new.

Newsday asked about his recent remarks to a media house that no firm decision had been made on if the schools would transition.

Berkley said, “Well, let us put it this way. No firm decision. We accepted the idea of a change in principle but we needed to know what was involved in that principle, and whether there were matters we would be left with which are beyond our control.”

Newsday asked if he could give any assurances to BATCE teachers worried how the transition might affect their recognition, job tenure, salary and leave entitlement.

Berkley said, “Indeed. We have said that to the teachers. We have their best interest at heart.

“But to give an assurance is a risky business in terms of what the negotiations might turn up or how we might conclude. So we are not able to give an assurance except to say we are striving for what would be in the best interest of the teachers in accordance with what they have enunciated on a ‘needs list’ which I think we had collected.”

Douglas, Sean. Anglican Bishop: ‘Great empathy’ but no assurances for BATCE teachers as transition talks continue. 9th June 2024. Newsday.

They say no news is good news, and I sure hope that’s the case here for the sake of the teachers who, strangely, do not have a representative involved in the negotiations. Go figure.

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A Plea for Equity from our Energy Minister

No big preamble for this one, it’s just interesting to hear a member of T&T’s very own trickle-down economics crew call out the wealthy for failing to pull their own weight. He’s 100% right, of course. If only that kind of thinking could apply within our shores too.

It is imperative for the region to become an advocate for transition for the survival of the region, but small-island states should not bear the full responsibility of climate change, the minister added.

“That responsibility is not really one that lies on us here in this region, but one that needs to be carried by the wealthy, developed and developing countries who are the main emitters,” he said.

“Unfortunately at these conferences, people shy away from facing that reality and calling out those who are really responsible and need to cut back on their emissions.”

Hamilton-Davis, Ryan. Young: EU’s carbon-use tax regime not equitable. 11th June, 2024. Newsday.

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Where Exactly Are the Children Wukkin?

The Minister of Labour revealed that 4 out of every 100 children are working and nearly 3 out of every 100 children are doing hazardous labour, but he didn’t say where exactly they were employed…

Labour Minister Stephen Mc Clashie says in Trinidad and Tobago, we still face challenges with children involved in child labour.

In a message to commemorate World Day Against Child Labour, Minister Mc Clashie said a Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) conducted by the Central Statistical Office in collaboration with UNICEF in 2022 revealed that 4.3% of children between the ages of 5 and 17 are involved in child labour.

He said that is, 4 out of every 100 children in that age group are in child labour.

“Child labour often exposes children to hazardous conditions, jeopardizing their health and safety,” he said.

The Minster said the MICS also revealed that 2.7% of children between the ages of 5 and 17 are involved in hazardous child labour.

That is almost 3 out of every 100 children in that age group are in hazardous child labour.

Labour Minister: 4 out of every 100 children involved in child labour. 11th June 2024. Guardian

Inquiring minds want to know.

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And there you have it, the inaugural fwiw Roundup. I can’t promise I’ll be able to squeeze time to do it every day, but I’ll do my level best.

Did any of these stories catch your eye today? Did I miss any interesting ones? Let me know in the comments!