SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

From Jan­u­ary 2020 up un­til yes­ter­day, there were 68 in­ci­dents where peo­ple were killed in po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings.

This num­ber was pro­vid­ed by Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty head, David West, who told Guardian Me­dia every in­ci­dent is the sub­ject of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the au­thor­i­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to da­ta from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), 55 peo­ple were killed in those in­ci­dents in 2020 and 16 have been killed so far this year.

The lat­est in­ci­dent hap­pened yes­ter­day morn­ing in En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas.

Po­lice said Jade Phillip, whom they de­scribed as a known of­fend­er, was killed in what they de­scribed as a gun­fight.

Ac­cord­ing to the po­lice re­port, po­lice were on pa­trol along En­ter­prise Street, En­ter­prise, around 9.35 am when they stopped a car, reg­is­tra­tion PDP 3245.

Po­lice said as they walked up to the car, they saw Phillip, who was in the dri­ver’s seat, point a gun at them.

One of­fi­cer fired at Phillip and the of­fi­cers said Phillip got out of the car and tried to run away. The of­fi­cer said they tried to ar­rest him but he be­gan to strug­gle with them.

Dur­ing the strug­gle, Phillip was said to have ‘gained an ad­van­tage’ on one of­fi­cer, grab­bing his Galil firearm and point­ing it in the di­rec­tion of an­oth­er of­fi­cer.

Po­lice said one of­fi­cer fired at Phillip again. He was hand­cuffed and tak­en to the Ch­agua­nas Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where he was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.

Po­lice said one gun—a pis­tol— was re­cov­ered. No po­lice of­fi­cer was in­jured dur­ing the in­ci­dent.

But in con­tra­dic­tion to the po­lice’s ac­count in a 35-sec­ond-long video cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia, a man is heard ask­ing po­lice of­fi­cers, “Why al­lyuh shoot the man for? What al­lyuh kill the man for?”

The man goes on to say “The man had no gun, they bounce him, look he car dey.”

The man shows what ap­pears to be a sil­ver Toy­ota hatch­back ve­hi­cle be­ing guard­ed by sev­er­al heav­i­ly armed po­lice of­fi­cers. The man then says to some­one off-cam­era, “As the man come out the car, the man hit the man about six boy.”

A num­ber of res­i­dents were al­so seen gath­ered at the scene, sev­er­al shout­ing at the of­fi­cers and many of them with­out face masks.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, PCA head West said so far for 2021, three PCA in­ves­ti­ga­tions have been con­clud­ed.

In the case of 53-year-old Car­los Manuel Oli­v­ere, a Cuban na­tion­al who was shot by po­lice in Princes Town, the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was con­clud­ed with no fur­ther ac­tion deemed nec­es­sary.

Oli­v­ere, a Cuban na­tion­al, was a street dweller who was seen fight­ing with an­oth­er man in ear­ly Oc­to­ber 2020. When po­lice stopped to in­ter­vene, Oli­v­ere at­tacked one of them with a chain. The of­fi­cer shot him in the chest.

The find­ings of the PCA’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the deaths of Joel Ja­cob, Noel Di­a­mond and Is­rael Moses Clin­ton on June 27, 2020, in Mor­vant, were al­so sent to the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP). That in­ci­dent, in­volv­ing sev­en po­lice of­fi­cers, sparked mas­sive protests in and around Port-of-Spain for sev­er­al days.

One of the pro­tes­tors, a preg­nant woman named Or­nel­la Greaves, was shot and killed dur­ing protests at Beetham Gar­dens. Po­lice said she was shot by her fel­low pro­tes­tors, whom they said were shoot­ing at them but the pro­tes­tors said po­lice shot Greaves.

On Oc­to­ber 25, 2018, five men were al­so killed in a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing in Trou Macaque, Laven­tille. Sha­keem Fran­cois, 15; Kadeem Phillip, 17; Shaun­dell St. Clair, 20; Mishack Dou­glas, 22 and 23-year-old Nicholas Bark­er, were said to be play­ing cards when they were shot by of­fi­cers from the In­ter-Agency Task Force.

Af­ter a PCA in­ves­ti­ga­tion, that case was al­so sent to the of­fice of the DPP for fur­ther ac­tion.

West said in many of the cas­es, in­ves­ti­ga­tors are wait­ing for doc­u­ments from the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre.