SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Nine months af­ter the po­lice shoot­ing deaths of friends Fabi­an Richards, Isa­iah Roberts and Leonar­do Williams, their par­ents are plead­ing for an­swers from the au­thor­i­ties sur­round­ing the killings.

On Mon­day, griev­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers of the mur­dered men called for jus­tice as they stood on In­de­pen­dence Square, Port-of-Spain, ex­act­ly where they were gunned down on Ju­ly 2, 2022, dur­ing an al­leged con­fronta­tion with po­lice.

The po­lice claimed the men shot at them and they re­turned fire. But the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies con­tin­ue to de­ny this.

Giv­ing their side of the sto­ry, they said that the six men were in a car re­turn­ing home from a par­ty in Diego Mar­tin when they were wrong­ful­ly tar­get­ed and chased, re­sult­ing in the deaths of the trio. A 15 year old who was in the ve­hi­cle was al­so shot and re­mains trau­ma­tised, while two oth­ers es­caped un­harmed.

Out­raged by what they de­scribed as un­jus­ti­fied killings, res­i­dents of Beetham Gar­dens and East Port-of-Spain blocked the main route in­to and out of the cap­i­tal city in Ju­ly 2022 caus­ing grid­lock for sev­er­al hours.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice promised the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies that the fa­tal shoot­ings would be in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

As the count­down to the first an­niver­sary of the men’s death draws clos­er, Michelle John, Isa­iah Roberts’ grand­moth­er, as well as Lucky Joseph, the moth­er of Leonar­do Williams, and Fabi­an Richards’ par­ents, Nicole and Garth Richards, they are still call­ing for an­swers.

Stand­ing out­side Re­pub­lic Bank where the men were fa­tal­ly shot, the rel­a­tives count­ed more than a dozen bul­let holes that shat­tered the wall.

Fabian Richards

Fabi­an shot 10 times, dad says it was overkill

“Look at bul­let holes...these men did not have a fight­ing chance. They were marked for death. They were all shot in the back,” Nicole said.

Through sobs, she said Fabi­an’s death has ripped her fam­i­ly apart and left a deep void in her life.

“It has been very hard. My son had so much to live for.”

Fabi­an, 21, who was bap­tised days be­fore his killing, was an elec­tri­cian.

“He was not a trou­ble­some child. Very re­spectable and a church-go­ing per­son,” Nicole said.

She said Fabi­an was a law-abid­ing cit­i­zen, un­like her el­dest son, Garth Jr aka “Boy Boy”, who got caught up in a life of crime and had rob­bery charges be­fore the court.

“I used to take him (Boy Boy) to the po­lice...and know­ing that Fabi­an was walk­ing down the right road and the po­lice come and take his life just so I does won­der what I do wrong be­cause I tried to do the right thing by tak­ing him (Boy Boy) to the po­lice.” Garth ad­mit­ted that Boy Boy was no saint, but through di­vine in­ter­ven­tion, he changed his lifestyle. In 2014, Boy Boy was killed by a bus while cross­ing the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route.

Nine years lat­er, the cou­ple is mourn­ing the death of an­oth­er son.

It’s like re­liv­ing the night­mare all over again.

“There are times I does say I wish it is a dream…that we dream­ing. There are times I does sit down and say I hope I see him (Fabi­an) walk through the door and say, Nicole, it is not me, all yuh bury the wrong per­son,” Nicole said, wip­ing away tears.

Un­able to con­tain her emo­tions, Nicole was com­fort­ed by her hus­band who al­so be­gan weep­ing un­con­trol­lably.

She said Fabi­an was shot 10 times.

The ma­jor­i­ty of bul­lets pierced his head and hands.

“It was an overkill by the po­lice,” Garth in­ter­ject­ed.

In Feb­ru­ary, Fabi­an’s girl­friend, Saidy John, gave birth to their daugh­ter, Soriya.

The Richards said watch­ing their grand­daugh­ter grow up with­out a fa­ther has been heart­break­ing and ag­o­nis­ing.

“Soriya has a lot of fa­ther fig­ures around her. But that blood fa­ther, she is grow­ing with­out it. And this was some­thing that Fabi­an want­ed. It was a planned preg­nan­cy. His goal was to start a fam­i­ly. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, he did not live to en­joy fa­ther­hood,” Nicole said.

Garth said Fabi­an was the fam­i­ly’s pride and joy.

“Peo­ple does see me smil­ing but they don’t know how I feel in­side or what I go­ing through. Our bur­dens have been a lot to bear.”

He said since the killings, his trust in the po­lice had waned.

Garth said they don’t know what is go­ing on with the in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“All they telling us is to hold on, they will get back to us. Once we went to in­quire and they said COVID had de­layed the in­ves­ti­ga­tions. On Sun­day (to­day) will make nine months since these fel­las get killed and not a word. It’s frus­trat­ing. Why do the wheels of jus­tice take so slow in this coun­try? Noth­ing seems to work. It’s frus­trat­ing.”

He felt if his fam­i­ly was liv­ing in the West, jus­tice would have al­ready been served.

“We done stig­ma­tise al­ready be­cause we from the Beetham and Laven­tille ar­eas,” Garth said.

Nicole in­ter­ject­ed: “They brand­ed every­body from Beetham a crim­i­nal. They have a thing be­cause you are from the ghet­to. We have a ten­den­cy not to see the good in the ghet­to, we al­ways see the bad. I does al­ways tell peo­ple plain that my chil­dren born and grow in the Beetham but they are not of the Beetham.

“I won­der when they (po­lice) do things to hu­mans be­ing out here how they go home and sleep at night. How do they face their fam­i­lies? How you could face your child af­ter you kill some­body’s child.”

Leonardo Williams

Leonar­do shot five times in the head; a dag­ger through mom’s heart

Clutch­ing her chest, Joseph said los­ing her 17-year-old son, Leonar­do, was like a dag­ger through her heart.

“The pain has been too much. When you lose some­one you love un­der these cir­cum­stances your life is nev­er the same. These po­lice ex­e­cut­ed them chil­dren. They were all shot be­hind their heads.

“My son picked up five (bul­lets) in his head,” Joseph said, as she fought back the tears.

She said the vic­tims were al­so re­lieved of their cell phones, mon­ey and valu­ables.

Mother of Leonardo Williams, Lucky Joseph.

KERWIN PIERRE

“Every day I cry for my child, every day.”

Joseph said her on­ly so­lace was God.

Leonar­do grad­u­at­ed from Mor­vant/Laven­tille Sec­ondary School with three O’ Lev­el pass­es and had reg­is­tered with the Civ­il Con­ser­va­tion Corps to be­gin an on-the-job train­ing pro­gramme to open his own busi­ness.

Joseph be­lieves the po­lice have been drag­ging their feet with the in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“What is tak­ing them so long? We need jus­tice. We beg­ging. We ask­ing. We cry­ing out. They didn’t de­serve to die like that,” she com­plained.

Isaiah Roberts

Sev­en bul­lets for Isa­iah, grand­ma los­es her hap­pi­ness

Choked with emo­tions, John said Isa­iah, 17, was al­so sprayed with bul­lets.

“Is sev­en bul­lets he get that night.”

The ma­jor­i­ty of the bul­lets pen­e­trat­ed Isa­iah’s head, leav­ing his face un­recog­nis­able.

“We couldn’t even let peo­ple see his face for the fu­ner­al be­cause it was mashed up. Is just fam­i­ly alone viewed his body.”

Isa­iah, who pur­sued me­chan­ics at the Ser­vol Life Cen­tre, had planned to vis­it his mom, Atil­lah, in New York, as she was due to give birth.

“He had al­ready pur­chased his plane tick­et and was look­ing for­ward to wel­com­ing his ba­by broth­er in­to the world.”

Hav­ing raised Isa­iah, John said he was a church­go­er who loved life.

“Isa­iah was my hap­pi­ness.”

Since the shoot­ing, John said the po­lice nev­er called or vis­it­ed her.

Like the Richards and Josephs, John too, is wait­ing for jus­tice.

Michelle John, the grandmother of Isaiah Robert speaks to Guardian Media.

KERWIN PIERRE

US De­part­ment of State’s 2022 Coun­try Re­port on Hu­man Rights Prac­tices

The trio’s mur­der was one of four po­lice-in­volved killings men­tioned in the Unit­ed States De­part­ment of State’s 2022 Coun­try Re­port on Hu­man Rights Prac­tices re­leased last month.

The re­port stat­ed “there were cred­i­ble re­ports that po­lice com­mit­ted ar­bi­trary or un­law­ful killings” in T&T.

Un­der A. AR­BI­TRARY DE­PRI­VA­TION OF LIFE AND OTH­ER UN­LAW­FUL OR PO­LIT­I­CAL­LY MO­TI­VAT­ED KILLINGS, the re­port stat­ed:

"On Ju­ly 2, po­lice shot and killed three men fol­low­ing a po­lice chase in Port-of-Spain. Po­lice re­port­ed be­ing shot at from the ve­hi­cle and al­leged they re­cov­ered an il­le­gal firearm from the ve­hi­cle. Au­top­sies re­vealed the three men were shot from be­hind. Three sur­viv­ing oc­cu­pants in the ve­hi­cle were ar­rest­ed and re­leased with­out charge. Fol­low­ing stan­dard pro­ce­dure, the in­ci­dent was un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA). The Po­lice Stan­dards Bu­reau of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice al­so in­ves­ti­gates whether se­cu­ri­ty force killings are jus­ti­fi­able."

Relatives of the men who lost their lives in the July 2022 police-involved killinga at Republic Bank, Independence Square, Port-of-Spain, show the bullet holes in the bank's wall.

KERWIN PIERRE

West: PCA will con­tin­ue to do its work com­pre­hen­sive­ly

Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty’s (PCA) di­rec­tor David West told the Sun­day Guardian the au­thor­i­ty is still con­duct­ing its own in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the fa­tal shoot­ings.

West could not give a time­line as to when the PCA will con­clude this in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“We need to get oth­er in­for­ma­tion from third par­ties.”

One of the par­ties in­cludes the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre.

The PCA in­ves­ti­gates crim­i­nal of­fences, cor­rup­tion and mis­con­duct of po­lice of­fi­cers.

He said nine months for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was not long, as some of the PCA’s probes have tak­en longer while oth­ers were done in short­er pe­ri­ods.

“It all de­pends on the com­plex­i­ties of the mat­ter. Dur­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tions, dif­fer­ent things come up, dif­fer­ent is­sues come up that we have to ad­dress. Then we have to write let­ters ask­ing for the in­for­ma­tion and then we have to get con­fir­ma­tion.”

West said the last thing the PCA wants to do was to “rush and make a rec­om­men­da­tion where you miss ev­i­dence. When we do a file it’s a com­pre­hen­sive file. When I make a rec­om­men­da­tion to close or to rec­om­mend crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings or dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings it is tak­en on all the avail­able lev­els that I have.”

1,028 com­plaints against the po­lice in 2021/22

The PCA’s 2021/2022 re­port showed the au­thor­i­ty re­ceived a record high of 1,028 com­plaints against the po­lice. Of this fig­ure, 569 were as­sessed as com­plaints that fell with­in the PCA’s re­mit while 26 and 45 of those com­plaints were re­ferred to the of­fices of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice re­spec­tive­ly.

The 12-page re­port al­so re­vealed that 410 com­plaints were closed with­out a re­fer­ral and with a de­ci­sion to take no fur­ther ac­tion. A com­plaint is clas­si­fied as fa­tal shoot­ings, non-fa­tal shoot­ings, road traf­fic ac­ci­dents in­volv­ing po­lice of­fi­cers re­sult­ing in se­ri­ous in­jury /death, death in po­lice cus­tody, mur­der/at­tempt­ed mur­der, sex­u­al of­fence and do­mes­tic and vi­o­lence al­le­ga­tions. Po­lice mis­con­duct, cor­rup­tion and crim­i­nal of­fence by an of­fi­cer are al­so clas­si­fied as com­plaints.