Derek Achong

An­gry res­i­dents of Sea Lots, Port-of-Spain, vi­o­lent­ly clashed with po­lice yes­ter­day morn­ing af­ter six of their neigh­bours, among them a moth­er and her two young daugh­ters, were knocked down by a speed­ing car dri­ven by a po­lice of­fi­cer.

The mas­sive protest ac­tion be­gan short­ly af­ter 9.30 am, min­utes af­ter 28-year-old Hadeey Paul and her daugh­ters–Ruthie, eight, and Shaki­ra, sev­en–were killed while at­tempt­ing to cross the Beetham High­way near Pi­o­neer Dri­ve, where they lived.

The three oth­er vic­tims of the crash were iden­ti­fied as Aman­da Lal­la, 26, Abi­gail Ass­ing and Ryan Dahl, al­so of Pi­o­neer Dri­ve. They re­mained ward­ed at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion up to late yes­ter­day.

A team of of­fi­cers from the Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB) was sum­moned to the scene of the protest, as it quick­ly es­ca­lat­ed.The of­fi­cers, armed with ri­ot gear, were forced to fire sev­er­al rounds of non-lethal rub­ber bul­lets in an at­tempt to con­trol the row­dy pro­test­ers. Some of the pro­test­ers were in­jured in the con­fronta­tion. Sev­er­al rounds of live am­mu­ni­tion were al­so dis­charged in­to the air to dis­perse the res­i­dents who at­tempt­ed sev­er­al times to block traf­fic on the high­way with de­bris.

Car ac­ci­dent at Sea Lots

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, around 9 am, the group was at­tempt­ing to cross the high­way from north to south to re­turn to their homes af­ter shop­ping at the Cen­tral Mar­ket.Po­lice said while walk­ing across the west­bound lane, an off-du­ty po­lice­man dri­ving of a Toy­ota Corol­la lost con­trol and slammed in­to them. Some of the vic­tims were pitched sev­er­al feet in­to the air and fell on the road­way, while some were crushed un­der the tyres of the car.Paul and her daugh­ters were pro­nounced dead on the scene by a dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer.

The off-du­ty of­fi­cer as­signed to the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion was al­so tak­en to hos­pi­tal by his col­leagues. He is said to have sus­tained se­ri­ous in­juries and was al­so be­ing treat­ed up to late yes­ter­day. The vic­tims' rel­a­tives and friends told in­ves­ti­ga­tors they feared that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion will be a "cov­er-up" as a po­lice­man was in­volved. But se­nior po­lice sources dis­missed these claims yes­ter­day af­ter­noon as­sur­ing that a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion would be con­duct­ed in­to the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the ac­ci­dent.

Some res­i­dents al­so claimed the po­lice­man was in­tox­i­cat­ed at the time of the ac­ci­dent and had a bot­tle of John­nie Walk­er in his car.Up to late yes­ter­day, traf­fic head­ing in­to and out of Port-of-Spain had to be di­vert­ed to the East­ern Main Road as scores of an­gry res­i­dents mount­ed their protest ac­tion at the scene of the ac­ci­dent.It could not be con­firmed, up to late yes­ter­day, whether the of­fi­cer was made to sub­mit to a breathal­yser test be­fore he was tak­en to hos­pi­tal for treat­ment.

Po­lice sources said con­sid­er­ing the dam­age caused in the ac­ci­dent, the of­fi­cer was more than like­ly dri­ving well over speed lim­it of 80 km per hour.The road fa­tal­i­ty toll for the year now stands at 29. Ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics re­leased by the Po­lice Ser­vice's Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis Branch, ear­li­er this year, there were 188 road fa­tal­i­ties in 2012.