Fran­cis Joseph

Co­di Alves is liv­ing a sec­ond life to­day af­ter he mirac­u­lous­ly es­caped death when po­lice killed his three friends in Mor­vant on the night of Oc­to­ber 1.

Alves, 30, said he had to "play dead to stay alive," oth­er­wise he would have been killed by the po­lice. He "played dead" from Mor­vant to Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he awoke in the mor­tu­ary, much to the sur­prise of the lone po­lice­man and hos­pi­tal staff. But his three friends–Joel Ro­main, 19, a for­mer na­tion­al ju­nior sprint­er, Ker­win "Lall" Joseph, 24, and Akee Ca­ballero, 32, were not so lucky. So far this year, 43 peo­ple have been killed by the po­lice. Alves is still trau­ma­tised by the in­ci­dent, say­ing his friends were in­no­cent­ly killed. He walks around in a daze. He does not trust even his own shad­ow, and his fam­i­ly is wor­ried for him. He can­not walk the streets of Mor­vant where he and his friends grew up. He has de­cid­ed to speak out, af­ter spend­ing more than a month in prison, be­cause he could not af­ford bail on what he called trumped-up firearm charges. He re­mained in prison be­cause his own lawyer, Wayne Sturge, re­fused to ap­ply for bail as he feared for Alves' life. If an in­quest is or­dered in­to the deaths, Alves said he would will­ing­ly be­come a wit­ness. He said there were oth­er eye­wit­ness­es to the shoot­ing, but they were afraid, at this time, to come for­ward.

The fol­low­ing is Alves' sto­ry:

"On Sep­tem­ber 30, we went to lime in Mal­oney. The next night, we went back to Build­ing 17 at Mal­oney, to get girls, nah. We were lim­ing with them, drink­ing and thing, nah. "Af­ter that, we jump in we car and go down the road. I was sit­ting be­hind the dri­ver. We were fol­lowed by a jeep, com­ing out of Mal­oney. "We come out on the high­way side. We ac­cus­tom see­ing a jeep, pass­ing nor­mal nah. Af­ter com­ing down, we stop by the dri­ver broth­er in Tu­na­puna, then the same jeep pass we again, stop, slow down, and I ask, is that not the same jeep that fol­low we on the high­way? "We say that nor­mal, we have noth­ing on we in the car. We con­tin­ue to go down the road, af­ter we pass a street, the same jeep come out the street and fol­low we again, straight down to San Juan.

"Af­ter we pass Curepe, we saw the same jeep pop up and fly pass we,�like they mark­ing we, watch­ing we, nah. My brethren say, you ain't see that, the same, same jeep boy. "We stop in Roy­al Cas­tle in San Juan and meh brethren say he not go­ing back in that car boy. We walk in Roy­al Cas­tle and he meet up a DJ from up by we, and brethren say he not go­ing back in that car, you see how po­lice mark­ing we. I say we have noth­ing in that car, boy, we nor­mal boy. The car is a lawyer car, too. He say is not a mat­ter is a lawyer car, is the way the po­lice mark­ing we. All of us from the same area. He then jump back in we car and say let we go. "When we reach by the Mor­vant junc­tion, we see a big bright beam. I was sit­ting be­hind the dri­ver so I look in the mir­ror, I see a po­lice jeep. When I look around, I see the same po­lice jeep. I then hear 'bu­tu, poom poom.' "The dri­ver mash on the gas, nah, they start to shoot up we car from the junc­tion straight up to Ju­man's. The car end up crash­ing by Ju­man's and the po­lice fire more shots in the car. When the car crash, I play dead right there.

"The dri­ver came out of the car and say 'Boss, ah have my chil­dren to live for,' and they walk up on him and start to shoot him. The dri­ver was a Mus­lim man, they call him Akee. It have peo­ple who see how they gun down the man like a dog." Alves con­tin­ued: "The oth­er two were half-dead. The one who was sit­ting down in the back seat with me, he done get shoot al­ready through the trunk of the car and through the back seat. I just see him rock­ing for­ward so I bend down in the car. The man in the left front seat, he got shot, too. "I not mov­ing, ah play­ing dead, ah see what go­ing on. The man in front, Lall, and the next man in the back. They (po­lice) pull them out and hit them 'boom, boom'. I just ly­ing down, ah ain't mov­ing. They take me out first and throw me in the back of the jeep. They put two oth­ers in the back of the jeep. They take the dri­ver and put him in the tray of a van. "The next man in the front seat, he didn't dead yet. He was still mov­ing at the back of the jeep, I was hold­ing down he hand, so. He was bawl­ing eh, eh, I hold­ing he down tight, so. Then a po­lice­man spin around and say that man ain't dead.

"He say stop, stop on the La­dy Young Look­out and then say, take him out, take him out, and shoot him in the head. They throw him back in the jeep and he say give him the gun, give him the gun.�"He take a gun and fire two shots in the jeep, like if it have a shoot-out. I could hear him on the po­lice ra­dio bawl­ing for back-up and fir­ing shots in the air, say­ing shoot-out, shoot-out, help, come and help we. "We reach the hos­pi­tal now, they jump out the jeep and say, is four ah dem. The nurse say four ah dem dead, they say nah, four ah dem died. I play­ing dead, they start to feel every­body pulse when we reach in the mor­tu­ary.

"One say ah feel­ing a pulse on this one, we will go with him, nah. A next nurse say­ing why they leav­ing this one alive, to come back and pess oth­er peo­ple. Bet­ter they did fin­ish kill he and done. "I fright­en, too. A po­lice­man was stand­ing up there guard­ing. They put some kind of gas thing on meh face, ah start­ed to feel numb. I didn't get shoot, the nurse say­ing I ain't see­ing no bul­let wounds on this one, like he didn't get shoot, turn him over. I full ah blood, re­mem­ber is three bod­ies in the jeep and every­body dead, all the blood leak­ing down on my face. The blood was leak­ing like a pipe."

�2 Con­tin­ues to­mor­row