RHON­DOR DOWLAT

The fam­i­ly of 24-year-old Jerome Charles, one of two men killed in a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing on Jan­u­ary 5, is plan­ning to sue the State over his death.

Charles and his friend, An­drew Camp­bell, 21, were shot by po­lice of­fi­cers at about 4.30 am on Jan­u­ary 5 at Spring Val­ley, Mt Dor, in Champs Fleurs. Po­lice claimed the two men, who they de­scribed as sus­pects, ini­ti­at­ed a gun­fight with of­fi­cers on a search war­rant ex­er­cise in the area.

How­ev­er, Charles’ moth­er, Vanes­sa Charles, said the au­top­sy re­port showed that her son died from mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds.

“It stat­ed that he was shot mul­ti­ple times and al­so that no gun residue was found on my son’s hands which proves that he did not have any gun on him and that he did not shoot at the po­lice,” she said.

“So be­cause of this my next step is to sue the state for killing my son. The po­lice killed my son and I am go­ing to sue the State. I have to get jus­tice for my son.”

Camp­bell’s au­top­sy al­so showed that he died from mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds.

A po­lice re­port said the in­ci­dent oc­curred while of­fi­cers were on an in­tel­li­gence-led search war­rant ex­er­cise at around 4.30 am on Jan­u­ary 5.

It said North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Task Force–West (NCDTF-W) of­fi­cers were at­tempt­ing to ex­e­cute a search war­rant at a home in con­nec­tion with re­cent shoot­ings in Mt D’or when they were con­front­ed by two armed men who al­leged­ly shot at them.

The of­fi­cers claimed they re­turned fire fol­low­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice use of force pol­i­cy.

The gun­men at­tempt­ed to es­cape but were found a short dis­tance away with gun­shot wounds. They were tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ence Com­plex where they were pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.

The po­lice said two firearms, an AK ri­fle with 18 rounds of 7.62 am­mu­ni­tion and a Glock 17 pis­tol with 17 rounds of nine-mil­lime­tre am­mu­ni­tion, were re­cov­ered at the scene.

The ex­er­cise was spear­head­ed by ACP Wayne Mys­tar, Snr. Supt. Ram­phall, co­or­di­nat­ed by Supt. Pow­der, In­sp. High­ly and di­rect­ly su­per­vised by Sgt. La Pierre, Ag Cpl. Forde, Ag Cpl. Su­perville, Ag Cpl. Good­ing and oth­er mem­bers of the NCDTF West, with sup­port from of­fi­cers of the NCDTF East, North­ern Di­vi­sion Gang Unit, Tu­na­puna and St Joseph Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tion De­part­ment (CID) and TTPS Ca­nine Unit.

Head of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) David West said an in­ves­ti­ga­tion has al­ready been launched in­to the in­ci­dent.