Re­port­ing by Geisha Kow­lessar, Derek Achong and Camille Clarke

Pan­de­mo­ni­um broke out again yes­ter­day morn­ing at Sea Lots, Port-of-Spain as res­i­dents con­tin­ued protest ac­tion de­mand­ing jus­tice for the deaths of 28-year-old Haydee Paul and her daugh­ters–Ruthie, eight, and Shaki­ra, sev­en–who were knocked down and killed on the Beetham High­way near Pi­o­neer Dri­ve on Sun­day.

The three oth­er vic­tims of the crash – Aman­da Lal­la, 26, Abi­gail Ass­ing and Ryan Dahl – al­so of Pi­o­neer Dri­ve, re­mained ward­ed at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal at the In­ten­sive Care Unit up to late yes­ter­day.

The res­i­dents are claim­ing the off-du­ty po­lice­man who knocked down Paul and her two daugh­ters was drunk at the time of the ac­ci­dent.Se­nior of­fi­cers said yes­ter­day a breathal­yser test was ad­min­is­tered to the of­fi­cer and blood sam­ples tak­en from him af­ter the ac­ci­dent. The po­lice­man is at­tached to the Trans­port and Tele­com Branch. In­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers said he would be ques­tioned when dis­charged from hos­pi­tal.

They said his car would re­main im­pound­ed at the po­lice sta­tion to be ex­am­ined by a team of li­cens­ing of­fi­cers.Dur­ing their protest ac­tion on Sun­day and yes­ter­day, Sea Lots res­i­dents claimed the of­fi­cer was in­tox­i­cat­ed and that a bot­tle of al­co­hol was re­moved from his ve­hi­cle by po­lice of­fi­cers who first re­spond­ed to the scene.

Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mervyn Richard­son con­firmed yes­ter­day that the dri­ver of the car is a po­lice of­fi­cer.From about 5 am yes­ter­day an­gry res­i­dents took to the Beetham High­way near Pi­o­neer Dri­ve and again blocked the road­way with burn­ing de­bris.

Sealots protest con­tin­ues

The po­lice were forced to di­vert traf­fic to Broad­way, Abat­toir Road and South Quay, Port-of-Spain. It caused a mas­sive traf­fic grid­lock in parts of east and west Trinidad.Mem­bers of the De­fence Force In­fantry Bat­tal­ion in ri­ot gear, Guard and Emer­gency Branch, In­ter Agency Task Force, fire­fight­ers, a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty he­li­copter were called out to con­tain the row­dy crowd.

Richard­son said: "The res­i­dents were throw­ing de­bris on the road and we re­spond­ed and we cleared the road. The min­is­ter (Jack Warn­er) came at 1.15 pm and spoke with the res­i­dents and they came to a con­sen­sus and we will talk again," he said. He added the res­i­dents agreed to hold up on fur­ther protest ac­tion.

Res­i­dents in­sist­ed yes­ter­day the vic­tims were not cross­ing the high­way but were hit while on the pave­ment.In an in­ter­view at the hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day, Ass­ing said she was try­ing to cross when she was hit by the car. Her neck was in a brace and her right arm was ban­daged.

"I near­ly made it to the side­walk when I got hit," she said. "All I know is when I re­gained con­scious­ness I turned around and saw the oth­ers in the mid­dle of the road and I was in the mid­dle of the cen­tre lane. I am in a lot of pain."

Ass­ing said she man­aged to lift her­self up on the side­w­al, but the dri­ver of the car did not even try to help.Miguel Hep­burn, who said he had been in a re­la­tion­ship with Paul for the past two years, said he was shocked over the deaths.

"We does be drink­ing but we don't dri­ve no car. They (po­lice) pull peo­ple over for a breathal­yser. And is six peo­ple he bounce down."

Richard­son com­mends cops

In an in­ter­view last night Richard­son said he was pleased with the po­lice re­sponse to Sea Lots on Sun­day and yes­ter­day.He said: "They (of­fi­cers) were very pro­fes­sion­al in han­dling the mat­ter this morn­ing and Sun­day. We had di­a­logue with them to get them to un­der­stand our po­si­tion.

"I ex­pressed our (the po­lice) grief and sor­row to them but at the same breath we told them the po­lice have a du­ty to the na­tion to keep the high­ways and roads free. "We (po­lice) spoke to the res­i­dents and we got it cleared. The po­lice did a good job and I am proud of the of­fi­cers for how they han­dled the sit­u­a­tion in a pro­fes­sion­al man­ner."

What Warn­er told res­i­dents:"I have spo­ken to Min­is­ter of Works Emanuel George and he has as­sured me that his tech­ni­cal of­fi­cers shall look in­to the pos­si­bil­i­ty for a crossover that you all have asked for. "I am here to of­fer con­do­lence. Noth­ing we can do to­day can bring back the lives of those lost. I am shar­ing in your grief as every­one else."Warn­er al­so promised the res­i­dents to re­turn to the area to hold fur­ther dis­cus­sion in re­gard to the con­struc­tion of the walkover.