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Friday, January 24, 2025

Did Inspector John truly pull trigger that took his life?

by

957 days ago
20220612
Ronald John Snr

Ronald John Snr

For all of their 30 years to­geth­er, Ronald Michael John’s life re­volved around his fa­ther Ronald Roger John.

His fa­ther was his sole par­ent, best friend, and men­tor.

How­ev­er, trag­i­cal­ly, on May 31, 2020—just two months af­ter the ar­rival of the first con­firmed case of COVID-19 in Trinidad and To­ba­go—Ronald Snr died sud­den­ly.

Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice In­spec­tor of Crime of the North­ern Di­vi­sion Ronald John died from a sin­gle gun­shot to his head out­side of his wife’s Trinci­ty home.

As a proud Afro-Trinida­di­an man, Ronald Jnr ex­udes con­fi­dence—a trait he cred­its to his fa­ther—but when asked about his emo­tion­al state since his fa­ther’s pass­ing, un­bear­able pain from a bro­ken man pours out.

“I’ve lost every sin­gle fam­i­ly mem­ber that I’ve known. No one be­lieves me. My re­la­tion­ships are dam­aged. I’m an emo­tion­al wreck. I can­not love. I have a men­tal dis­or­der dis­man­tling me. To think that some­one who took care of me, made me so strong, shot and killed him­self just like that, leav­ing me with fi­nan­cial prob­lems, and emo­tion­al prob­lems. My fa­ther was all I had,” Ronald Jnr said, chok­ing back tears.

“To sit down in my fa­ther’s house every sin­gle day, ex­pect­ing him to come home, know­ing he is not com­ing home, I al­most went crazy be­cause I know some­thing is wrong here…I am suf­fer­ing every day. Even to­day, as I speak to you, I am suf­fer­ing men­tal­ly be­cause I have to go back home to face this. I have to sleep on my fa­ther’s bed.”

How­ev­er, while the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice clas­si­fied Ronald Snr’s death as a sui­cide, Ronald Jnr re­fus­es to ac­cept it.

In the two years since his fa­ther’s death, prov­ing, what he be­lieves is, the truth has be­come his sole pur­pose; an ob­ses­sion.

In his at­tempt to prove that his fa­ther did not die by sui­cide, he’s rent­ed out his home—which he once shared with his fa­ther—to pay for le­gal fees to ac­cess doc­u­ments.

Ronald John Jnr

Ronald John Jnr

While rais­ing funds, he’s lived out of his car, then the Bel­mont home’s garage—left to uri­nate and defe­cate in a near­by canal.

“My main fo­cus has been find­ing the truth and it’s tak­en me to men­tal dis­tress where peo­ple are look­ing at me and they are like, some­thing is wrong with him— he mad—Every time you talk with him, all he talk­ing about is his fa­ther. So, I’m trau­ma­tised by this be­cause how can this hap­pen with no truth, no an­swers?” Ronald Jnr said.

“How does a po­lice of­fi­cer of that dis­trict, hold­ing that of­fice, just shoot him­self, just like that? With­out any­one notic­ing that Mr John is go­ing through some­thing. Mr John was fit to work. He was writ­ing and dis­patch­ing of­fi­cers. I can show you my fa­ther’s po­lice records of out­stand­ing ser­vice; nev­er late for work; nev­er ab­sent.”

Ac­cord­ing to the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tor as­signed to the case, sev­er­al se­nior of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing the cur­rent Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob vis­it­ed the scene on May 31st, 2020.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tor said sev­er­al checks were car­ried out then and there to rule out foul play.

“I told Mr John’s son, there’s no ev­i­dence to sug­gest any­one would have caused the un­time­ly pass­ing of your dad, and as a re­sult, the file will be com­piled and sent to the coro­ner’s court for an in­quest,” he said.

“There are cer­tain doc­u­ments still out­stand­ing, in­clud­ing the al­leged sui­cide note, out of no fault of mine, but I’ll con­tin­ue to do what I have to do…The truth will al­ways come out in the end.”

Sta­tion di­ary re­port

Ac­cord­ing to a sta­tion di­ary re­port on the 54-year-old’s death, “On en­try in­to the back­yard of the house the body of…Ronald John...an Act­ing In­spec­tor...last at­tached to the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion was ly­ing on his bel­ly in what ap­peared to be a pool of blood with his head fac­ing north­west and feet south­east…his wife was in­ter­viewed and she re­port­ed that around 12:50 pm to­day, she was at home with the com­pa­ny of her two daugh­ters…who was asleep...when the de­ceased left them in­side the house and went to the back of the house, short­ly af­ter they heard two loud ex­plo­sions and on check­ing she ob­served the de­ceased ly­ing mo­tion­less in the back­yard.”

“The DMO vis­it­ed the scene, pro­nounced the body(sic) dead, and or­dered its re­moval to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre for a post-mortem…Crime scene of­fi­cers…vis­it­ed the scene and processed same and seized the fol­low­ing (1) One Glock Pis­tol…with 1 mag­a­zine and 11 rounds of 9m am­mu­ni­tion (2)1 FUL for Glock 19 pis­tol...(3) Sui­cide note (4) Two cell phones with dam­ages con­sis­tent with a gun­shot (5) two spent shells.”

While the po­lice have lit­tle doubt about the cause of death, Ronald Jnr finds sev­er­al things pe­cu­liar.

First­ly, he said it was strange that his fa­ther would shoot his two phones, be­fore tak­ing his own life.

“I called my fa­ther on the 31st May—that same Sun­day (That he died) …On the oth­er end, I be­lieve the per­son on my phone was not my fa­ther, so I called back be­cause they hung up abrupt­ly. When I called back, straight to voice­mail, straight to voice­mail, straight to voice­mail. My fa­ther on­ly an­swers his phone one par­tic­u­lar way—‘Bless­ings,’“ he al­leged.

He al­so al­leged that the hand­writ­ing of the sui­cide note found in his fa­ther’s pants doesn’t match his fa­ther’s usu­al hand­writ­ing.

In an at­tempt to prove his point, John Jnr read from a note writ­ten by his fa­ther.

Guardian Me­dia, with­out the nec­es­sary ex­per­tise to ex­am­ine hand­writ­ing, could not make any as­ser­tions about al­leged dif­fer­ences be­tween the two.

How­ev­er, the note spoke to per­son­al is­sues in­volv­ing his wife that seem­ing­ly left John Snr dis­traught.

He spoke to his body and mind be­ing worn and stressed as a re­sult of stres­sors.

Autopsy report shows bullet traveled  from right to left.

Autopsy report shows bullet traveled from right to left.

Ac­cord­ing to the au­top­sy re­port, ob­tained by Ronald Jnr through a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act Re­quest, the bul­let en­tered through the right of the head and ex­it­ed through the left.

Ronald Jnr con­tend­ed the find­ing was strange, giv­en his fa­ther was left-hand­ed.

In an­oth­er FOIA Re­quest made to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre by Ronald John Jnr, he sought to find out if the death was self-in­flict­ed.

The pathol­o­gist re­spond­ed by let­ter on De­cem­ber 3rd, 2021 say­ing, “Even though the cause of death was bul­let im­pact and en­try in­to the body, as to what hap­pened be­fore the bul­let was dis­charged, I will be un­able to say whether the hold­er of the gun was the de­ceased or some oth­er per­son as the ev­i­dence passed to the pathol­o­gy unit does not in­clude this po­si­tion. This is a mat­ter for the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tor to neg­a­tive or con­firm.”

“If my al­le­ga­tions are wrong, why don’t the po­lice ser­vice sim­ply present the ev­i­dence to sup­port their re­port of sui­cide? That’s all I am ask­ing for—the truth, the truth,” John Jnr plead­ed.

Tri­als

Ronald John Snr was 54 years old when he died and served 32 years in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

The last few years of his life, how­ev­er, were full of tests and tri­als.

As an Act­ing In­spec­tor, he in­ves­ti­gat­ed sev­er­al high-pro­file cas­es un­der the ad­min­is­tra­tion of for­mer Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith.

John Snr, the head of the Four Roads Sta­tion at the time, was the in­ves­ti­ga­tor look­ing in­to a miss­ing di­ary re­port which con­tained ac­cu­sa­tions made against for­mer CoP Grif­fith by Co­corite res­i­dent Ce­cil Skeete.

Skeete, in a com­plaint to Four Roads Of­fi­cers, al­leged in 2019 that Grif­fith choked and threat­ened to kill him while he was be­ing ques­tioned by po­lice.

The di­ary was al­leged­ly seized and re­mained un­ac­count­ed for, while sev­er­al of­fi­cers in­volved in in­ves­ti­gat­ing the case were trans­ferred to an­oth­er di­vi­sion by a for­mer As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.

Dur­ing his in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the miss­ing di­ary, John Snr was al­so trans­ferred from the Four Roads Po­lice Sta­tion to the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion.

“My fa­ther was told to leave that in­ves­ti­ga­tion alone. Now that my fa­ther is dead, that in­ves­ti­ga­tion has gone cold case(sic).

“An­oth­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion my fa­ther was in­ves­ti­gat­ing was, have you heard of the case where the DPP asked for a file? To bring him the Hack­shaw file (For­mer ACP Ir­win Hack­shaw), re­mem­ber that? My fa­ther was al­so an in­ves­ti­ga­tor in­to the death of Vaughn “Sand­man” Mieres on the North Coast, where Mr. Mieres was al­leged to have promi­nent rogue of­fi­cers on his pay­roll,” John Jnr claimed.

“He did (ex­press con­cerns about his safe­ty con­cern­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tions). That’s why he put con­tin­gen­cies in­to play. He took sick leave and he was go­ing to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.”

Skeete, a gang leader, was lat­er mur­dered.

In 2017, a year af­ter get­ting mar­ried, John Se­nior was di­ag­nosed with can­cer.

In 2019, hav­ing al­ready put out large amounts of mon­ey for treat­ment he was left un­able to af­ford the surgery need­ed to save his life.

That year, John went to the Unit­ed States hop­ing to have emer­gency surgery per­formed.

Pathologist’s Note

Pathologist’s Note

Donors paid US$15,000 for his surgery at the Kingsville Med­ical Cen­tre in Texas, Unit­ed States.

“He did three ma­jor surg­eries and he healed. The cre­ator blessed him with life, he came back to Trinidad in Jan­u­ary 2020.

“I have all my fa­ther’s med­ical records from Kingsville Med­ical which will show that even though my fa­ther had can­cer, his body was well-nour­ished. He didn’t have ter­mi­nal sick­ness to say that he was dy­ing,” John Jnr said about ru­mours that his fa­ther’s can­cer di­ag­no­sis was ter­mi­nal.

“He was on ac­tive du­ty. He’s ac­tive­ly hold­ing a ser­vice firearm. He can­not yield that firearm un­less he has a med­ical psy­chi­atric eval­u­a­tion done…He’s deal­ing with pub­lic in­ves­ti­ga­tions. What ail­ing? He was not ail­ing,” John Jnr claimed.

With T&T’s bor­ders closed, John stayed with rel­a­tives for close to a year in the US af­ter his life-sav­ing surgery.

In ad­di­tion to hav­ing can­cer, John Snr was al­so ex­pe­ri­enc­ing mar­i­tal is­sues, hav­ing sep­a­rat­ed from his wife of four years at the time of his death.

The case re­mains clas­si­fied as a sui­cide.

How­ev­er, the case re­mains open and if any ev­i­dence sug­gest­ing foul play comes for­ward, they will in­ves­ti­gate it.

Ronald Jnr says he will con­tin­ue in his at­tempt to make sense of the trag­ic loss of his fa­ther and best friend—a ded­i­cat­ed po­lice of­fi­cer with 32 years of ser­vice.

“This is my fa­ther. This is some­body who took care of me for 30 years of my life. I nev­er had a moth­er. A lot of young men in this coun­try to­day do not have a fa­ther…I feel as though my life has been over. For two years, this has been my main pri­or­i­ty. I haven’t had a job. I haven’t had a re­la­tion­ship. I haven’t had any so­cial ac­tiv­i­ty,” John Jnr said in clos­ing.

Since March 2020, at least three po­lice of­fi­cers are be­lieved to have died by sui­cide.

Ac­cord­ing to the Di­rec­tor of the Health Min­istry’s Men­tal Health Unit Dr Hazel Oth­el­lo, 232 peo­ple died from sui­cide in Trinidad and To­ba­go be­tween the years 2020 and 2021.

Close to 80 per cent of those who died were men.

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