A 16-year-old student of the Chaguanas North Secondary School was yesterday charged with plotting to kill a teacher at the school.
The student will be taken before a Chaguanas magistrate at the Tunapuna Magistrates Court at 1 pm today.
The T&T Guardian was told that a contingent of police officers went to the school yesterday and spent several hours acting on intelligence they received. Several interviews were conducted, after which the schoolboy was arrested and charged with the offence.
In an immediate reaction to news of the arrest, president of the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA), Devanand Sinanan, would only say: “The law has to take its course now.”
Asked if he was satisfied with the police investigations into allegations that gang members planned to attack certain teachers and students because their associates had been reprimanded for indiscipline, Sinanan said he would be visiting the school today, along with Education Minister Anthony Garcia, to get first-hand feedback from teachers and students.
“I will need to find out how they feel with the intervention of the police and the despatchment of extra security guards at the school,” Sinanan said. (See page A6)
Classes at the school resumed yesterday but with increased police presence in and around the school compound. There were also frequent foot and mobile patrols by police officers around the school and its environs.
On Sunday, Garcia said police officials had agreed to maintain a “very visible presence” inside and outside the school compound at Helen Street, Chaguanas.
This comes three days after classes were dismissed early when school officials received information of a planned gun attack by gang members with close links to students attending the school.
News of the “credible threat” prompted an emergency meeting on Friday and forced officials to cancel classes for the remainder of the day.