Carisa Lee

From as ear­ly as 7 am yes­ter­day, res­i­dents of Sea Lots blocked the high­way with de­bris and burned old tires. With­in min­utes the high­way was im­pass­able as fire of­fi­cers ar­rived to ex­tin­guish the flames.

“As soon as al­lyuh gone we will light it back,” one res­i­dent shout­ed

“We want jus­tice and all this will done,” an­oth­er said.

But that was not the on­ly protest tak­ing place in East Port-of-Spain at the time, po­lice had to put out a fire in the vicin­i­ty of Prince and George Streets Port-of-Spain.

While there, sev­er­al shots rang out in Laven­tille forc­ing of­fi­cers at Prince and George Streets to leave that post and in­ves­ti­gate where the shots came from.

Soon af­ter more of­fi­cers joined. How­ev­er, with all of this hap­pen­ing busi­ness went on as nor­mal on George Street.

Fur­ther east on the East­ern Main Road res­i­dents threw tree branch­es and stones in­to the street. Po­lice quick­ly ar­rived on the scene and quelled the sit­u­a­tion but not be­fore the res­i­dents burned rub­ble, even an old maxi taxi. Sev­er­al per­sons from that area were al­so ar­rest­ed by po­lice.

The protests on the east and west bounds of the high­way caused stand­still traf­fic for mo­torists com­ing in and leav­ing the cap­i­tal city.

“I went to work good good,” one woman said as she walked to her Beetham home from work.

With that hap­pen­ing on East­ern Main Road where there was a heavy po­lice and De­fence Force pres­ence, res­i­dents of Sea Lots threw Flam­beaus on old tires in the com­pound of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Sol­id Waste Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny.

“It hit my foot,” one po­lice of­fi­cer said as he showed Guardian Me­dia his foot.

“They now shoot a woman on Beetham now self the thing start,” a man pass­ing buy said to the me­dia.

Most re­ject­ed to speak with us but said their protest is sim­ply for jus­tice for the three men Joel Ja­cob, Noel Di­a­mond, and Is­rael Clin­ton who were killed in Mor­vant on Sat­ur­day and warned that Wednes­day will be worse.

“Al­lyuh killing our men, leav­ing chil­dren fa­ther­less,” a res­i­dent said.

“The fact that ras­ta and Mus­lim unite shows that thin se­ri­ous,” an­oth­er said.

As po­lice fo­cused on Sea Lots gun­fire was heard at the East­ern Main Road.

The taxi stands for Laven­tille and Mor­vant were filled with peo­ple wait­ing as no taxis were op­er­at­ing.