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.
