Geisha Kow­lessar

Res­i­dents of Beetham Gar­dens are claim­ing that 15 peo­ple, among them chil­dren, were held hostage by heav­i­ly armed po­lice of­fi­cers who threat­ened to "kill every­body" dur­ing a po­lice lock­down in the area Thurs­day evening.

The in­ci­dent stemmed from the shoot­ing deaths of Ricky Roberts 39 and 45-year-old Fa­bi­en Mauge, both of Beetham Gar­dens.

Res­i­dents claim the men, said to be re­spon­si­ble for Wednes­day's mur­der of Port-of-Spain DVD ven­dor An­der­son By­one, were wrong­ful­ly killed by po­lice. They claim the as­sailants re­spon­si­ble for By­one's slay­ing were not from the Beetham and were "still out there." Res­i­dent Sharmine Nichols, claimed her busi­ness­place, Tri­ni Mi­ni Mart and Bou­tique on the cor­ner of 24th Street was in­vad­ed by po­lice af­ter ter­ri­fied res­i­dents ran in­to her es­tab­lish­ment dur­ing the po­lice ex­er­cise. Nichols, a moth­er of two teenaged girls, said po­lice, in pur­suit of the res­i­dents, smashed glass cas­ings, pelt­ed stones at glass win­dows, shared licks, de­stroyed goods and stole about $300 from her busi­ness.

"The po­lice keep crack­ing their gun in we face and say­ing they would kill every­body in the shop," Nichols claimed. She said around 7.30 pm she was sit­ting out­side her busi­ness­place with her sis­ter Michelle, when "some­body pelt bot­tles at the po­lice." Nichols said res­i­dents who were lim­ing on the road then ran in­to her store to hide from the po­lice. "About 15 peo­ple run in my shop and the po­lice run in be­hind them and start to pelt bot­tle and beat we," Nichols said. She al­leged that when she at­tempt­ed to speak to the po­lice, one of them pulled her "ras" and hit her a gun butt on the arm. De­scrib­ing the at­mos­phere yes­ter­day as "tense" in the com­mu­ni­ty, an­oth­er res­i­dent said the po­lice or­dered a "cur­few" on Thurs­day night and threat­ened to ar­rest those who failed to take heed. "The po­lice said af­ter six who in­side could stay and who out­side can­not get in­side. "Po­lice tell a man who now cross the bus route to come home to go back where he come from be­cause he can­not get in the area," the res­i­dent claimed. He said res­i­dents held lit­tle re­spect for the po­lice be­cause in­no­cent peo­ple were of­ten tar­get­ed.

?Com­mis­sion­er re­sponds

?Yes­ter­day, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er James Philbert as­sured that all man­pow­er nec­es­sary would be used to deal with crim­i­nal el­e­ments in Beetham Gar­dens. "We are go­ing to fight the crim­i­nals and I am go­ing to en­sure my of­fi­cers are well-pro­tect­ed. "We are not go­ing to al­low crim­i­nals to dic­tate any pace for us and we are def­i­nite­ly not afraid of them," Philbert said.