Rhon­dor Dowlat

Qhe Bais­den, who was shot dur­ing a protest in East Port-of-Spain on Mon­day af­ter­noon, is autis­tic. And the trau­ma of the in­ci­dent is now said to have set his mind back to that of a three-year-old.

Bais­den, 39, was on his way home from work when, as he reached the cor­ner of Ri­ley Ter­race and Bath Street, he was shot in one of his legs. The bul­let ex­it­ed through the con­nec­tion point to the leg, sev­er­ing a main artery. His con­di­tion was sta­bilised, but up to late yes­ter­day he re­mained ward­ed at the In­ten­sive Care Unit of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Both po­lice and the res­i­dents are blam­ing each oth­er for the shoot­ing, with nei­ther ac­cept­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. The po­lice have re­leased a video of the in­ci­dent, but it does not have any au­dio and does not give a full ac­count of what tran­spired.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian at his home yes­ter­day, Bais­den’s broth­er, Alím said he was “shocked, dis­traught and yet an­gry” over what hap­pened to his broth­er.

How­ev­er, he blamed the po­lice.

“My broth­er was walk­ing up the hill, mind­ing his own busi­ness, not tak­ing heed of what’s hap­pen­ing around him. The bul­let holes speak for it­self. The po­lice were down­hill shoot­ing up­hill. One of the bul­lets went through and through my broth­er’s leg. He didn’t even know he was shot and when he walked fur­ther up that’s when he col­lapsed.”

Bais­den is a kitchen as­sis­tant at the Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel in St Ann’s and is one of the bread­win­ners of the house­hold, where al­most all his sib­lings are said to be ei­ther autis­tic or suf­fer­ing from a men­tal ill­ness.

Alím said his broth­er was a stu­dent at Ser­vol in his ear­li­er years.

“Ser­vol was able to bring him up to a lev­el where he could have been able to blend in­to so­ci­ety to work and help pay the bills. Now, be­cause of the trau­ma, my broth­er has now men­tal­ly gone back to that of a three-year-old. How will he be able to pull through this?”

He added: “He al­ways had a prob­lem of try­ing to form words. He would speak but on­ly to peo­ple when it was nec­es­sary. He usu­al­ly doesn’t speak much. I am an­gry be­cause the po­lice took his mind away. We are now go­ing to act as his re­hab now.”

Bais­den’s shoot­ing came as res­i­dents con­tin­ued to protest over the po­lice killing of Basilon Street res­i­dent Akel “Christ­mas” James. James’ killing sparked out­rage among res­i­dents of East Dry Riv­er, caus­ing many of them to dump garbage and de­bris on­to sev­er­al ma­jor road­ways, block­ing all traf­fic flow for hours. Some de­bris was al­so set afire by the protest­ing res­i­dents, who called for jus­tice for James.

Lat­er that evening, when res­i­dents at­tempt­ed to reignite de­bris along Bath Street, Bais­den was shot and wound­ed in an al­leged cross fire be­tween po­lice and gang mem­bers. How­ev­er, res­i­dents claimed the po­lice were not shot up­on and that they were the ones who were shoot­ing at res­i­dents. The po­lice mean­while claim Bais­den was shot by one of the res­i­dents and was brought to them to be tak­en to hos­pi­tal for treat­ment. The video the TTPS re­leased shows Bais­den be­ing car­ried by the res­i­dents to the po­lice, who then put him in­to a van to be tak­en to hos­pi­tal.

Alím, how­ev­er, knocked the po­lice for do­ing a “ter­ri­ble job.”

“They should have known not to hit civil­ians in a com­bat sit­u­a­tion, re­gard­less of what sit­u­a­tion…yes, the area has a long his­to­ry with gangs, but gang or no gang they (re­fer­ring to gang mem­bers) al­ways avoid­ed hit­ting civil­ians. They would not shoot the res­i­dents and if one of their own gets hit they take care of their own…just say­ing. But the po­lice of­fi­cer who shot my broth­er should be held ac­count­able for what hap­pened.”

He sug­gest­ed that a peace treaty should be the or­der of the day now.

“We can­not con­tin­ue like this…this back and forth trou­ble. They ex­e­cut­ed some­one who didn’t know who he was as a per­son (re­fer­ring to James). In­stead, they should have ar­rest­ed him and tak­en him down or some­thing, talk to them. The po­lice’s ac­tions have caused a lot of anger, rage and dis­ap­point­ment and they should change their ap­proach now. It is time.”

Meawhile, in­ves­ti­ga­tors look­ing in­to the two po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings will have a tough time be­cause the of­fi­cers in­volved were not wear­ing body cam­eras.

The un­cer­tain­ty about both in­ci­dents has lead to the ques­tion of whether po­lice of­fi­cers in­volved were wear­ing body cam­eras at the time.

But last evening, TTP cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Ellen Lewis said they were not.

“The use of body worn cam­eras in the TTPS is in the ex­per­i­men­tal stage and there­fore lim­it­ed to the of­fi­cers in­volved in a ran­domised con­trolled tri­al,” Lewis said in re­sponse to a ques­tion on the mat­ter last evening.

In Ju­ly last year, some 60 body cams were as­signed to of­fi­cers for a test­ing pe­ri­od of six months. But Lewis said “the of­fi­cers in­volved in the tri­al were not among those on du­ty in East PoS.”

How­ev­er, Lewis said there are CCTV cam­eras in the ar­eas were the in­ci­dents oc­curred and footage from these cam­eras are be­ing used in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.