Kevon Felmine

Rel­a­tives and friends of a Clax­ton Bay scrap met­al deal­er are call­ing for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to his death af­ter he was shot by po­lice on Sat­ur­day night.Joel Jaikaran, 38, of Hill­top Dri­ve, Spring­vale, died on the road­side at Her­mitage Branch Road, Clax­ton Bay, af­ter he was shot once in the chest by a Spe­cial Re­serve po­lice of­fi­cer.Ac­cord­ing to the po­lice, Jaikaran had at­tacked them and was at­tempt­ing to dis­arm a po­lice cor­po­ral when he was killed.

Rel­a­tives, how­ev­er, are dis­put­ing the po­lice claims. They said they were told by eye­wit­ness­es that Jaikaran was shot in the back while run­ning away from the po­lice .Enathius George, a close friend, said Jaikaran was not the kind of per­son to have a gun, he was not a vi­o­lent."I knew him as a cool and re­spectable per­son," he added.

George, who was at the home of Jaikaran's great-aunt Tara Boops­ingh's yes­ter­day, claimed the po­lice were af­ter Jaikaran be­cause he had an out­stand­ing war­rant. He said: "He tried to get away, but they had no right to shoot him. They could have shot him on his foot. They could have called an am­bu­lance, or even take him to the hos­pi­tal. We need an in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­cause this is un­just. If it can hap­pen to him, it can hap­pen to any­one else."

Po­lice said a dri­ver had stalled on the shoul­der of the Sir Solomon Ho­choy High­way around 11 pm and was be­ing as­sist­ed by a wreck­er op­er­a­tor when Jaikaran was seen get­ting out of his Toy­ota Roy­al Sa­loon. They claimed he was act­ing sus­pi­cious­ly as he ap­proached the ve­hi­cle and there was an ob­ject bulging from his waist. They said the dri­ver of the wreck­er stopped a pass­ing po­lice pa­trol and alert­ed them to Jaikaran.

The po­lice said Jaikaran at­tacked one of the two of­fi­cers while he was be­ing searched. They said dur­ing the scuf­fle, a sawed-off shot­gun fell from his waist and he at­tempt­ed to snatch an of­fi­cer's ser­vice re­volver. He was then shot by the SRP.

How­ev­er, George said Jaikaran was trans­port­ing some­one to Macaulay on Sat­ur­day night when he saw a car stalled on the high­way. He said Jaikaran was a me­chan­ic and was ap­proach­ing to as­sist the mo­torist.He said: "The po­lice walked across, raff him and start­ed to fight with him. He got away and he ran be­cause he had a war­rant be­fore. When he got away and ran, the po­lice fired two shots be­hind him, left him ly­ing down and came and told the fel­low in the car to walk and go home. That is what the guy told me."

George said Jaikaran was a help­ful and qui­et man who nev­er showed any signs of be­ing vi­o­lent. He said Jaikaran was just try­ing to make ex­tra mon­ey to re­pair his car when he was killed.