Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day warned the na­tion’s youth to steer clear from a life of crime or face dire con­se­quences.

Not­ing that mem­bers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice are trained to re­spond to force used against them, he said, “The po­lice are trained to shoot and they will shoot to kill if you threat­en their lives and when you arm your­selves with a weapon like a gun, it means you have made a de­ci­sion to use it and it doesn’t make sense to think that the law en­force­ment of­fi­cers will wait to see what you do and how you use, so you are putting your­self in harm’s way.”

The Prime Min­is­ter’s warn­ing came at the open­ing of the 2024 Agri Ex­po at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, as he ad­dressed the killing of six al­leged ban­dits by po­lice in Freeport on Wednes­day.

Among those shot were four peo­ple un­der the age of 25, and in­clud­ed a teenage girl. The vic­tims have been iden­ti­fied as broth­ers Kadeem, 23, and Saleem John, 19; Isa­iah Oliviere, 21; Jo­van Si­mon, 31; Sham’e Nicholas Cae­sar, 27; and Sa­lome Ranghill, 16.

Po­lice said they tracked sus­pects in­volved in a home in­va­sion to the house in Freeport and were greet­ed by gun­fire when they ar­rived. Of­fi­cers said they re­turned fire and lat­er found the six dead in the house.

While he did not ad­dress the in­ci­dent di­rect­ly, Dr Row­ley not­ed, “It ap­peared some bad choic­es were made.”

He fur­ther ex­plained that chal­leng­ing law en­force­ment was al­ways a poor de­ci­sion.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so plead­ed with the na­tion’s youth to fac­tor in the con­se­quences of the choic­es they make.

“I want to ap­peal to young peo­ple mak­ing de­ci­sions, don’t make that de­ci­sion, it can on­ly end bad­ly for you, for your fam­i­ly and all of us.” The Prime Min­is­ter said crim­i­nals who be­lieved they were em­bold­ened by those around need­ed to re­assess their lives.

“Don’t let any­body make you be­lieve that you could shoot your way out of a sit­u­a­tion with the po­lice or the De­fence Force, that is a bad de­ci­sion.”

In a state­ment on Thurs­day, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher said the lat­est shoot­ing deaths of the six sus­pects linked to the Freeport rob­bery, “re­veals a deeply trou­bling trend where young per­sons un­der the age of 25 are the pri­ma­ry sub­jects in many of our in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.”

Hare­wood-Christo­pher said ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion and a strong re­solve were need­ed to ad­dress the is­sue.

“The im­por­tant and cru­cial role of par­ents and guardians can­not be un­der­stat­ed as you play the pri­ma­ry role of guid­ing our youth to­ward pos­i­tive and con­struc­tive paths. We need to ac­tive­ly en­gage with young peo­ple, sup­port them and help them to nav­i­gate through these tur­bu­lent times and steer them away from the ap­peal of crim­i­nal be­hav­iour.”

On two sep­a­rate oc­ca­sions in the space of sev­er­al days, po­lice have re­spond­ed with full force against a to­tal of nine peo­ple who al­leged­ly en­gaged in shootouts with them. Less than a week ago, teenagers Amir “Pa” Bis­soon, 16, Joseph Ramjit and 21-year-old Jaya Jo­di Barath, a moth­er of one, were killed in a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing on the Ca­roni Sa­van­nah Road.

Po­lice said they re­ceived a re­port of a car with oc­cu­pants car­ry­ing guns and sub­se­quent­ly tried to in­ter­cept a white Nis­san Almera speed­ing along the road. Of­fi­cers said when they at­tempt­ed to stop the car, the dri­ver rammed the po­lice ve­hi­cle and two gun­shots were heard. The car ran off the road and two oth­er gun­shots were heard be­fore po­lice re­turned fire, hit­ting three oc­cu­pants.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds, who was al­so at the open­ing of the Agri Ex­po, not­ed that while he did not have suf­fi­cient facts to com­ment on Wednes­day’s po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing, it was a trou­bling in­ci­dent.

“Cer­tain­ly, to have lost six lives, what­ev­er the cause, is a loss to Trinidad and To­ba­go, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it ap­plies to youth and it is a con­cern for us that so many young peo­ple are get­ting them­selves en­gaged in pur­suits that at­tract the at­ten­tion of law en­force­ment to re­sult in this.”

Hinds said young per­sons lured by a life of crime must re­con­sid­er their po­si­tion ur­gent­ly.

“That is a very short-sight­ed un­god­ly po­si­tion to take. Suc­cess is nat­ur­al, fail­ure is un­nat­ur­al, love is nat­ur­al, hate is un­nat­ur­al, peace is nat­ur­al, war is un­nat­ur­al and you are a nat­ur­al hu­man be­ing cre­at­ed by God and there­fore you ought to be­have nat­u­ral­ly.”