Eight po­lice of­fi­cers who were in­volved in the shoot­ing deaths of three men in Mor­vant have been charged with mur­der

Joel Ja­cob, Noel Di­a­mond and Is­rael Clin­ton were shot and killed by po­lice in Cale­do­nia Mor­vant, on June 27, 2020. 

Joel Ja­cob was cel­e­brat­ing his 38th birth­day when the in­ci­dent oc­curred.

The deaths of the men sparked out­rage and protests in com­mu­ni­ties across East Port of Spain af­ter video footage of the in­ci­dent ap­peared to show two of the men with their hands raised be­fore be­ing killed—which cast doubt on the ac­count of the in­ci­dent giv­en by po­lice.

The po­lice of­fi­cers had claimed that one of the men reached for a firearm, prompt­ing them to open fire.  

In Ju­ly 2020, sev­en of­fi­cers in­volved in the in­ci­dent were sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave.  In ad­di­tion to a Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty probe, the Po­lice Ser­vice es­tab­lished its own task force to in­ves­ti­gate the killings.

In No­vem­ber 2020, the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty sent the find­ings of its pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tion to the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions for fur­ther ac­tion.

The spe­cial task force in the Po­lice Ser­vice re­cent­ly con­clud­ed its own in­ves­ti­ga­tions, which sub­se­quent­ly re­sult­ed in the eight po­lice of­fi­cers be­ing ar­rest­ed.