For the past two weeks, Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk has looked at po­lice-in­volved killings fol­low­ing the Jan­u­ary shoot­ing of Joshua Sama­roo.

Re­ports re­vealed that in 2025, when T&T was in a State of Emer­gency (SoE) from the start to the end of the year, the coun­try had the high­est num­ber of po­lice in­volved killings at 55.

In the case of the fa­tal po­lice shoot­ings of Fabi­an Richards-21, Isa­iah Roberts-17 and Leonar­do Williams-17 in 2022, their case has gone cold as fam­i­lies con­tin­ue to be in the dark with the TTPS’ in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

But what hap­pens if you’re just a by­stander?

That is Nathan’s Pierre’s sto­ry.

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Nathan Pierre walked in­to Courts one day to buy a tele­vi­sion and nev­er walked again.

For the past 26 months, Pierre, 34, has been con­fined to a wheel­chair af­ter be­ing struck by a stray bul­let that was dis­charged from the gun of a po­lice con­sta­ble in the carpark of Courts Mega Store in El So­cor­ro on De­cem­ber 17, 2023.

He now sur­vives on a month­ly $2,000 dis­abil­i­ty grant from the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, which bare­ly pays his bills, buys gro­ceries, sends his chil­dren to school and pur­chas­es his med­ica­tion and med­ical sup­plies.

Re­gard­ed as the pil­lar of the fam­i­ly, Pierre’s life has now tak­en a dif­fer­ent course and a down­ward spi­ral.

Pierre won­dered if Ka­ia Sealy, who be­came paral­ysed fol­low­ing a po­lice in­volved shoot­ing last month, would en­dure a sim­i­lar fate.

Sealy was shot mul­ti­ple times in a car dri­ven by her boyfriend Joshua Sama­roo, who was killed by po­lice of­fi­cers, which sparked pub­lic out­rage af­ter a video be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia.

Sealy is still seek­ing med­ical care in the hos­pi­tal for her paral­y­sis and wounds.

When Pierre saw the video, it brought back mem­o­ries of his in­ci­dent.

“Them po­lice… they ruth­less. Shoot first and ask ques­tions af­ter. They cov­er up for one an­oth­er,” Pierre al­leged.

Pierre said it’s left to be seen if jus­tice will pre­vail.

Life of strug­gle

Pierre, a fa­ther of two, said that he has been suf­fer­ing since the shoot­ing, through no fault of his own.

He spoke to Guardian Me­dia at his Man­go Al­ley, Laven­tille home last week.

The bul­let pierced Pierre’s back, broke two ribs, dam­aged his kid­neys, sev­ered his spinal cord and re­mained lodged in his right shoul­der.

He was one of four peo­ple shot in the carpark, two of whom died.

The vic­tims were sib­lings Sinaya and Sime­on Lessey.

He com­plained that the dis­abil­i­ty grant he re­ceives can bare­ly main­tain him­self.

Every month, Pierre spends ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1,500 on painkillers, pam­pers, gauze, sur­gi­cal tape, gloves, saline, in­co pads, cot­ton and wipes to treat his five bed sores on his back, which he de­vel­oped last year.

The deep sores are stuffed with cot­ton and cov­ered with lay­ers of gauze by Pierre’s com­mon-law wife, Sherice Lawrence, to make him feel com­fort­able.

Lawrence us­es 75-gauze strips on Pierre’s back.

“Each strip costs over $1. So that is close to $100 we spend on gauze alone.”

One sore is near his tail­bone.

“It is re­al­ly bad…when you clean it, you can see part of his spine,” said Lawrence.

The re­main­ing $500 has to pay Pierre’s bills, buy food­stuff and send his chil­dren, ages nine and six, to school.

“That mon­ey is not do­ing noth­ing,” he said.

He said when he came out of emer­gency surgery, the doc­tors told him he would nev­er walk again.

“Those words con­tin­ue to haunt me. To me, it’s hard to di­gest and ac­cept.”

Every day, Pierre asks him­self, “Why this hap­pened to me? What did I do to de­serve this?”

He knows there are no an­swers to his ques­tions.

Lawrence said get­ting Pierre to the hos­pi­tal to at­tend clin­ic has al­so been chal­leng­ing and frus­trat­ing.

Lawrence would have to use all her strength to push Pierre’s wheel­chair along a nar­row dirt track out to Trou Macaque Road to get a taxi.

Most times, taxi dri­vers refuse to pick him up.

Pierre spends his day in front of the house over­look­ing the cap­i­tal city.

Pierre said he loved the out­doors and spend­ing time with his chil­dren, who adored him.

“I of­ten take them to play in pub­lic places. But this has since stopped. It’s not on­ly me who suf­fer­ing, them chil­dren feel­ing it too.”

Ap­peal to the Crim­i­nal In­juries Com­pen­sa­tion Board (CI­CB) for fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance

Two years ago, Pierre ap­plied to the Crim­i­nal In­juries Com­pen­sa­tion Board (CI­CB) for fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance, but is still await­ing feed­back.

The CI­CB was cre­at­ed in 1999 to pro­vide fi­nan­cial re­lief to vic­tims of vi­o­lent crimes and their de­pen­dents to re­build their lives.

Un­able to uri­nate on his own, Pierre us­es a catheter bag.

Dur­ing the in­ter­view, Pierre had to pause for sev­er­al min­utes be­cause of his laboured breath­ing.

For her part, Lawrence said that she re­cent­ly start­ed at­tend­ing an of­fice as­sis­tant course of­fered by the Youth Train­ing and Em­ploy­ment Part­ner­ship Pro­gramme, with the hope of gain­ing em­ploy­ment to help with their fi­nan­cial con­straints.

She knows her role as a house­wife and care­giv­er must change to that of a main provider to keep their fam­i­ly afloat.

Weeks be­fore the shoot­ing, Pierre had es­tab­lished his own plumb­ing com­pa­ny and se­cured his first con­tract.

“Life was look­ing up for me,” he re­called.

The fam­i­ly was rent­ing in Ari­ma and moved in­to Laven­tille to make a fresh start.

What was lack­ing in the house, Pierre said, was a tele­vi­sion set, which would have been a per­fect Christ­mas gift for his fam­i­ly, and he de­cid­ed to go to the fur­ni­ture store to buy the item.

“I nev­er thought walk­ing in­to Courts’ carpark would have changed the course of my life. I was the sole bread­win­ner in the fam­i­ly. Now I feel emas­cu­lat­ed know­ing I can’t do any­thing to main­tain my chil­dren and Sherice. I was al­ways an ac­tive per­son. I have been re­duced to noth­ing. The on­ly way I’m see­ing my fu­ture is in this chair and on a bed,” Pierre said, as he tried hard to con­tain his emo­tion.

PCA still in­ves­ti­gat­ing

Po­lice con­sta­ble Sid­ney Roberts, 34, of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions, was charged with the mur­ders and shoot­ing with in­tent to do griev­ous bod­i­ly harm.

Di­rec­tor of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) David West con­firmed that the au­thor­i­ty “is in­ves­ti­gat­ing the mat­ter” in­volv­ing the shoot­ing.

“Wit­ness state­ments were tak­en, and med­ical re­ports re­ceived. Noth­ing from the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre as yet.”

West said the PCA al­so ob­tained CCTV footage.

Laven­tille West MP Ka­reem Mar­celle said he would have his team reach out to Pierre to as­sess his sit­u­a­tion, “and see in terms of le­gal ad­vice what we can of­fer.”

Mar­celle promised to vis­it Pierre to help him in what­ev­er way pos­si­ble.

On Thurs­day, Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed the CI­CB and left a num­ber for its chair­man, Alvin Pas­call, to con­tact this re­porter, but he did not re­spond.

This news­pa­per al­so en­quired about the sta­tus of Pierre’s ap­pli­ca­tion.

An em­ploy­ee who iden­ti­fied her­self as Miss Mo­hammed said Pierre’s ap­pli­ca­tion was con­fi­den­tial.

The CI­CB was cre­at­ed by Act 21 of 1999 and pro­claimed in No­vem­ber 2000 to pro­vide fi­nan­cial re­lief to vic­tims of vi­o­lent crimes and their de­pen­dents who re­ly on this as­sis­tance to re­build their lives.

Next month, the board’s three-year term will end.

A 2022/2023 CI­CB re­port stat­ed that dur­ing 2023, the board re­ceived 155 cas­es for de­ter­mi­na­tion.

Of this fig­ure, the board ap­proved 142 ap­pli­ca­tions amount­ing to $2,053,174.48.

It al­so stat­ed that Ju­ly 2023 record­ed the high­est month­ly award of $413,500, while Sep­tem­ber record­ed the high­est num­ber of cheques is­sued, 69.

In 2022, a to­tal of 203 cas­es were sub­mit­ted, of which 159 were ap­proved, to­talling $1.7 mil­lion.

The 88-page re­port stat­ed that at the close of the fis­cal year, Sep­tem­ber 30, 2023, CI­CB’s over­all ap­pli­ca­tions were 2,608, with a to­tal pay­ment of $22,221,675.47

State made to pay

But the state has been made to pay com­pen­sa­tion to vic­tims of po­lice shoot­ings be­fore.

In Ju­ly 2024, the state was or­dered to pay over $400,000 to fire of­fi­cer Roo­sevelt Gas­pard, who was left paral­ysed fol­low­ing a po­lice shoot­ing in San Juan.

Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad, in 2021, award­ed $230,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to Afisha Williams, the part­ner of a Gon­za­les land­scap­er who was shot by po­lice.

In 2017, Thomas died of gun­shot wounds, which were not re­lat­ed to the 2014 in­ci­dent.

Mis­tak­en­ly shot in his but­tocks by a po­lice of­fi­cer who was at­tempt­ing to ap­pre­hend a group of ban­dits in 2016, Mara­bel­la res­i­dent Kendell Wright re­ceived over $100,000 in com­pen­sa­tion.