RALPH BAN­WARIE

Three women who were filmed dur­ing a row­dy brawl at the Pi­ar­co Air­port will now have to greet in­com­ing pas­sen­gers as part of their pun­ish­ment.

The women plead­ed guilty to charges of dis­turb­ing the peace and re­sist­ing ar­rest when they ap­peared be­fore Ari­ma Mag­is­trate Ali­cia Chankar yes­ter­day.

They were or­dered to serve 100 hours of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice where they will serve as am­bas­sadors to meet and greet pas­sen­gers.

Chankar told them they on­ly had them­selves to blame, af­ter a cell­phone video of the fight was shared on so­cial me­dia, for their shame­ful be­hav­iour.

Caris­sa Cavelle, 23, of En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas, Tama­ra Samuel, 25, of Cunu­pia, and Kadeisha Jef­fers, 20, of Waller­field were charged with dis­turb­ing the peace and re­sist­ing ar­rest. Jef­fers was al­so charged with as­sault­ing an Es­tate Woman Po­lice Con­sta­ble.

Cavelle and Samuel told the court that they were in the line at KFC out­let wait­ing to pur­chase a meal when Jef­fers who was in front of them kept turn­ing around and stretch­ing her arm over them.

They said when they asked Jef­fers to re­frain from stretch­ing over them she be­came an­noyed and point­ed her fin­gers in Samuel's face which trig­gered the fight.

Jef­fers ad­mit­ted that she had a few drinks of vod­ka and or­ange juice, which prompt­ed her be­hav­iour.

Chankar told Cavelle and Samuel that they were both moth­ers and their ac­tions were an em­bar­rass­ment to the coun­try.

"Do you know about na­tion­al pride? Trinidad and To­ba­go has enough pub­lic­i­ty of our high crime rate and fight­ing in the air­port is more em­bar­rass­ment for us. Did you ever think about go­ing to the of­fi­cers at the air­port and mak­ing a re­port? Are you not ashamed of your­selves?"

"I am very ashamed of all of you. An of­fi­cer got blows try­ing to bring some peace," Chankar said.

The mag­is­trate or­dered the three women to turn and face the fe­male Es­tate Con­sta­ble and apol­o­gise to her as well as mem­bers of the pub­lic seat­ed in the court.

She ad­vised the women to seek anger man­age­ment coun­selling. The women were al­so or­dered to sign bonds, in the sum of $5,000, to keep the peace for one year or serve six months in prison in de­fault. Jef­fers was fined $1,000 for as­sault­ing the se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer.

The video of the fight drew out­rage on so­cial me­dia and prompt­ed Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Ro­han Sinanan to ad­vise the T&T Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of­fi­cials to pur­sue crim­i­nal charges against the women.

The charges were laid by Es­tate Cpl Prem­c­hand Baldeo of Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty.