Camille Clarke

Po­lice moved quick­ly yes­ter­day to quell protests by res­i­dents of Beetham Es­tate af­ter they at­tempt­ed to block a por­tion of the Beetham High­way, then the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route in the vicin­i­ty of Pash­ley Street, Laven­tille.The res­i­dents took to the streets af­ter Randy Williams, 25, a fa­ther of three, of Phase Five, Beetham Es­tate, was shot dur­ing an en­counter with the po­lice out­side the Beetham Land­fill.Williams re­mains ward­ed at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Po­lice said Williams was at the land­fill when he al­leged­ly con­front­ed an of­fi­cer who had charged him with us­ing ob­scene lan­guage and re­sist­ing ar­rest last De­cem­ber. They claimed Williams threw stones at the of­fi­cer, who fired a warn­ing shot in the air. When he did not stop, the of­fi­cer shot him in the foot.

Res­i­dents who saw Williams be­ing tak­en away to hos­pi­tal protest­ed but were sub­dued by the po­lice. Around mid­day, the res­i­dents at­tempt­ed to move their protest to the high­way but were blocked by of­fi­cers of the In­ter Agency Task Force, Guard and Emer­gency Branch, Tran­sit po­lice of­fi­cers and mem­bers of the De­fence Force.They were al­so stopped from protest­ing on the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route.One an­gry res­i­dent shout­ed: "Them on­ly shoot­ing peo­ple on the Beetham like we is crim­i­nal. They sup­pose to see a gun be­fore they shoot."

In­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the in­ci­dent are con­tin­u­ing.