Senior Reporter
anna-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt
Although they will have to wait until Monday for the autopsies on their murdered relatives, families of the six people killed by police in Freeport on Wednesday say they will move to have independent autopsies, as they want to ensure there is no cover-up.
Saying they felt the six were executed by lawmen in a house at Calcutta Number 2, Freeport, on Wednesday, grieving family members yesterday said they wished police had moved to detain or arrest the alleged offenders instead of shooting first.
While the mother of lone female victim Salome Ranghill, 16, of La Romain, declined to speak at the Forensic Science Centre (FSC), St James, relatives of three of the five male victims shared details on the lives of the men.
A male relative of Jovan Simon, 31, dismissed reports that the victims fired at law enforcement, as he questioned what evidence had been collected to indicate this. The group was killed hours after they robbed a pensioner of $50,000 worth of jewellery, $600 and his bank card.
Simon was said to have been employed with Super Industrial Services Limited, Couva, and lived at Perseverance Village. The father of two daughters, aged two and seven, was described as a person, “who loved to lime and loved to drink.”
The relative said Simon had no criminal record, nor would he have been tangled up with anyone who had run afoul of the law.
“Jovan really don’t lime with people who are influenced in robberies and crime, cause he know if he do any crime and get caught, it would jeopardise his whole lifestyle,” the relative said.
He claimed Jovan went to the house and about 15 minutes after he got there, the police arrived.
Admitting he could not say what transpired at the house as there were no survivors, Simon’s relative stressed, “I not saying the guys them is good guys, I not saying they is bad guys ... you understand what I am telling you. When you make a child and they reach 18, you no longer have responsibility for that child.”
However, he said the events of Wednesday were not adding up, as he cited what they knew about what occurred between the time the six had reportedly committed a robbery at 6.30 am that day and the time they were found by police at 11.35 am and allegedly engaged the police in a shootout.
The relative said, “Our next step from here is to do an autopsy for our own self to show how the children were shot.”
Reiterating that relatives felt “it was an execution,” the angry man questioned where the evidence to show the six fired at the police officers was, noting there was no broken glass nor was the door to the house damaged.
“The children could have been cautioned, they didn’t have to be executed,” he said, to nods of agreement by relatives of the other deceased.
He called on Police Commissioner Erla Harewood-Christopher to get involved in the investigation, saying the families were demanding justice for the dead.
The brother of Sham’e Nicholas Caesar, 27, said he initially found out about the killings on social media.
Satnarine Elias said he last spoke to his brother a day before he was killed, when Nicholas said he wanted to return to the family home in Preysal.
Elias said he was not interested in an independent autopsy, as he felt the results would reflect the same findings as those done at the FSC.
“The autopsy would show they die by bullet. They were not beaten or tortured, so all the autopsy would show is the bullet punctured the heart, punctured the lungs, caused internal bleeding ... and you will get back the same results no matter how many autopsies you do. The results will be the same, they die by bullet.”
He said the police officers involved used “book sense to cover themselves to make it look good.”
He added, “The law have rules and the human beings in uniform didn’t follow the rules.”
Elias claimed the deceased were defending themselves against the officers when they were killed, which was evidenced by the bullet wounds in their forearms and fingers.
Relatives of Isaiah Ollivierre, 21, of Maturita, Arima, said the killings were “not sitting right with them.”
Expressing physical and moral support for one another, as they shook hands and hugged each other, the grieving families were critical of the lack of effort from the TTPS Victim and Witness Support Unit to offer of counselling to any of them.
Ollivierre’s relative said, “They were treated like animals. You can’t sit quietly by, see these things happen and be okay with it. It is upsetting to the spirit. It is your flesh and blood you are talking about. Whatever you think of the individual at the end of the day, you expect that justice would take its course. Whatever anybody do, there should be justice but that was not justice.”
Pledging to support other families whose relatives were killed by police in similar situations, he said they intend to seek legal and spiritual advice as they move forward.
Demanding authorities to say if there was a death squad existing in T&T, the relative said if the law could set aside judicial parameters and act as they please, it would increase the mayhem and chaos across the country.
The family of brothers Kadeem John, 23, and Saleem John, 19, of Claxton Bay, spoke with Guardian Media on Thursday at their home.
The parents accompanied by two daughters were present at the FSC to identify their bodies yesterday.