Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

More than a month af­ter his son was shot and killed by po­lice at their Mor­vant home, Steve Hug­gins says he con­tin­ues to live with the trau­ma dai­ly and has de­vel­oped health prob­lems from the stress of the loss.

Hug­gins’ son, Al­lasafie, 26, was one of two men killed by po­lice on the morn­ing of June 2.

Ear­li­er that morn­ing 23-year-old Kwasi Williams was al­so killed by po­lice.

Ac­cord­ing to the po­lice, of­fi­cers from the Mul­ti Op­er­a­tional Po­lice Squad (MOPS) vis­it­ed Williams’ home where they claimed he shot at them, prompt­ing them to re­turn fire, killing him. Short­ly af­ter they al­so vis­it­ed Hug­gins’ home where he was killed in an­oth­er shootout.

At the fam­i­ly’s Cale­do­nia home yes­ter­day, the el­der Hug­gins de­nied the ac­count of events pro­vid­ed by the po­lice. He said the fam­i­ly con­tin­ues to grieve the loss and is call­ing for greater ac­count­abil­i­ty from the po­lice, es­pe­cial­ly in sit­u­a­tions where of­fi­cers use lethal force.

“I would like to see prop­er jus­tice pre­vail, with no in­ter­fer­ence or bias. I want jus­tice not just for me but for all fam­i­lies, all par­ents, every­one,” he said.

“When these things hap­pen with­out jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, you’re sup­posed to get jus­tice. Every­body must get sat­is­fac­tion.”

Hug­gins said his son had been de­tained in con­nec­tion with a home in­va­sion, but re­leased from cus­tody in No­vem­ber 2021. He wore an an­kle bracelet, which mon­i­tored his move­ments up un­til the time of his death.

He said on the morn­ing of his son’s death he awoke to the sound of peo­ple out­side his home and flash­lights were shone in his face by of­fi­cers who en­tered the yard and even­tu­al­ly the house, round­ing up the fam­i­ly in a part of the house while they searched for his son.

Hug­gins said while he did not see what hap­pened, he heard the sound of gun­shots.

“It’s re­al­ly dis­turb­ing and then you came with all these oth­er lies, say­ing you were con­front­ed with gun­fire and had an ex­change of gun­shots. There were no marks of blood on the wall, noth­ing there, nowhere. Every­thing was on the floor,” he said.

He said he con­tin­ues to feel the pain of his son’s death.

“A doc­tor told me I suf­fered with a mild stroke, maybe I got it in my sleep so I wasn’t aware but those are the symp­toms I’m fac­ing,” he said.

“I think the health is­sues I’m fac­ing could be at­trib­uted to los­ing my son. Be­fore I was nor­mal, so was my wife. My wife had to spend two or three days in the hos­pi­tal af­ter the in­ci­dent.”

De­spite these chal­lenges, Hug­gins and his fam­i­ly re­main firm in their calls for jus­tice and an­swers on what led to the death of Al­lasafie. \

He said a re­port was made to the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) hours af­ter his son was killed.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, head of the PCA David West con­firmed the mat­ter is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

Hug­gins said while he holds no ill will against the po­lice ser­vice as an or­gan­i­sa­tion, he hoped rogue of­fi­cers who pre­ferred to use vi­o­lence be­fore fol­low­ing prop­er pro­ce­dure will be dealt with by the law.

“When they want to cut cor­ners with their job, they just want to pack up every­thing like rub­bish they just say ‘gang-re­lat­ed’ no more move­ments,” he said.

An of­fi­cer in the North East­ern Di­vi­sion said the mat­ter is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed thor­ough­ly. He said the di­vi­sion con­tin­ues to in­ves­ti­gate po­lice-killings and treats such in­ci­dents se­ri­ous­ly.

All po­lice-in­volved killings are in­ves­ti­gat­ed by a first di­vi­sion of­fi­cer, some­one at the rank of As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice (ASP) or above.