But what should the law-abiding man or woman resident in these zones expect from this state of emergency?
Well, this SOE isn't anything like what you what you went through during COVID - there is no curfew and no restriction on movement.
The COMPOL says that while they are cracking down on gangs, it shouldn't affect regular folks. He further emphasized that these efforts are to make it so that ordinary people unaffiliated with gangs don't have to live in fear:
Chester Williams, Comissioner of Police
"It is only prudent that when you have a situation where, we have done our best to ensure that we try to find different ways to work with these different groups like for example through LIU and we have opportunities for them to get into different programs and they refuse to and continue to live a lifestyle where they create fear in the ordinary people the government does have a responsibility to ensure the safety of the citizenry, and while the SOE may be the measure of last resort as the Minister said sometimes it is the necessary evil that we need to apply to ensure that we get these people to put a pause on their actions."
"Um, the S.O.E is not a blanket one where we are just picking up every and anybody in those particular areas but we do have a number of persons who are being targeted and what we are doing, is to pick them up based on intelligence and just pluck out those persons who our intelligence is telling us are creating the problem or have the potential of creating problems in those declared areas."
"The police will do our utmost best to maintain presence in the particular area but again like we are saying this is not being done to target the law abiding. Citizens. We do not want to in any way impede the movement or the freedom of the law-abiding people within those declared areas. We want them to be able to move around freely as they will normally do better now that we are plucking out those trouble makers and so to say we are going to maintain a heavy presence in the area, we are not going to do that, but yes police will continue to move around in the area to make sure that those persons who are not yet detained by the police are captured If they would venture into the area."
