Ak­ile Si­mon

Ri­ot al­most broke out at Beetham Gar­dens late yes­ter­day, af­ter an­gry res­i­dents blocked the Beetham High­way and Main Street. The res­i­dents were protest­ing the po­lice killing of Ricky Roberts, 39, and 45-year-old Fa­bi­en Mauge, both of Beetham Gar­dens. The vil­lagers claimed the men were mur­dered by po­lice on Wednes­day night. Gun­shots echoed in the com­mu­ni­ty and po­lice of­fi­cers warned mem­bers of the me­dia not to ven­ture in­to Hell Yard, Beetham. "Don't go in­side of there be­cause they shoot­ing up the place," a po­lice­man warned. "Beetham peo­ple want war tonight so all you bet­ter get out of here," the of­fi­cer shout­ed from an un­marked po­lice ve­hi­cle as it sped out of the area to the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route.

The dra­ma start­ed short­ly be­fore 6 pm, af­ter scores of irate res­i­dents blocked the high­way caus­ing a traf­fic jam. Rush hour traf­fic dragged from the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um to the high­way. There was al­so traf­fic on the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route and the East­ern Main Road as mo­torists sought al­ter­na­tive routes in or­der to get out of the area. Tires and de­bris were thrown un­to the high­way and set on fire by the vil­lagers, who de­mand­ed jus­tice for the killings. Scores of heav­i­ly-armed of­fi­cers from var­i­ous elite po­lice units were called to the scene to re­store or­der. In­sp Wal­cott of the In­ter Agan­cy Task Force said the in­ci­dent at Beethem stemmed from a shoot-out be­tween po­lice and two mur­der sus­pects.

"As a re­sult of that (po­lice killing) they (the res­i­dents) are mo­bil­is­ing forces with­in the area and blocked the bus route and the high­way and they start­ed pelt­ing bot­tles at any­thing," Wal­cott said. "The thing is that we have to put law and or­der back in­to the streets and we have to do it one way." He said when of­fi­cers ar­rived in the area their main ob­jec­tive was to get the res­i­dents off the streets so that a lev­el of nor­mal­cy could be re­stored. Wal­cott said any fur­ther in­ci­dents of law­less­ness would be dealt with in ac­cor­dance with the law. "It's a ze­ro tol­er­ance ap­proach we are tak­ing and as far as we get things to ar­rest peo­ple for, they would be ar­rest­ed," he said.

"We heard some shots fired up in Hell Yard ear­li­er. But again, the sit­u­a­tion is now un­der con­trol," he added, as he or­dered heav­i­ly-armed of­fi­cers to take up var­i­ous po­si­tions in the area. A vil­lager said the of­fi­cers should have dealt with the in­ci­dent in a bet­ter man­ner. "They didn't have to shoot and kill them fel­las last (Wednes­day) night," he said. A woman ac­cused oth­er of­fi­cers of tak­ing them in­to en­e­my land, Pump Trace, Laven­tille, to be killed by ri­vals. How­ev­er, up to late yes­ter­day, there were no com­plaints of po­lice bru­tal­i­ty by Beetham res­i­dents in the area. Act­ing ASP Sa­hadeo Singh su­per­vised the clear­ing of the high­way which al­lowed traf­fic to flow freely once again.