An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

As gang war­fare con­tin­ues to claim lives in South Port-of-Spain, two men, in­clud­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer, were left hos­pi­talised fol­low­ing a shoot­ing on Mon­day night on St Paul Street.

The sit­u­a­tion lat­er es­ca­lat­ed when a man was killed in Sea Lots by of­fi­cers dur­ing a raid al­leged­ly con­nect­ed to the hunt for the sus­pects in the St Paul Street shoot­ing.

Re­ports in­di­cate a 26-year-old man of North Post Road, Diego Mar­tin, had gone to drop off the moth­er of his chil­dren at an apart­ment com­plex on St Paul Street on Mon­day night when he was con­front­ed by two armed, masked men.

The vic­tim, who had been cel­e­brat­ing his birth­day, en­coun­tered the sus­pects as he was dri­ving out of the park­ing lot. The sus­pects re­port­ed­ly fired more than 84 rounds of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion in the di­rec­tion of the vic­tim’s sil­ver Maz­da 323.

Rapid-fire shots sent res­i­dents from the near­by com­plex and the sur­round­ing hous­es run­ning for cov­er.

Mean­while, the vic­tim, who was struck mul­ti­ple times about the face and up­per body, slumped for­ward and lost con­trol of the car, which stalled along the nar­row street.

PC Shakala Charles, of the Guard & Emer­gency Branch (GEB), was re­port­ed­ly on pa­trol with oth­er of­fi­cers around 8.30 that night when he was hit dur­ing the at­tempt­ed killing.

Po­lice re­ports claimed Charles and an­oth­er of­fi­cer had been on rou­tine pa­trol in the area at the time of the shoot­ing and ob­served the sus­pects fir­ing.

It was claimed that min­utes af­ter the in­ci­dent, Charles re­alised he had been shot through his bul­let­proof vest.

It was al­leged the two sus­pects re­turned to a wait­ing sev­en-seater taxi which sped off.

The civil­ian was tak­en to hos­pi­tal by res­i­dents, where he was treat­ed and ward­ed in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion up to late yes­ter­day.

PC Charles, mean­while, was treat­ed at hos­pi­tal for a sin­gle gun­shot wound to the chest, which ex­it­ed through the back. Charles was said to be ward­ed in se­ri­ous but sta­ble con­di­tion up to late yes­ter­day.

It was un­clear if Charles was de­lib­er­ate­ly shot dur­ing the in­ci­dent or if he was struck by a stray bul­let dur­ing the melee.

The sil­ver Suzu­ki Landy used by the shoot­ers was re­cov­ered short­ly af­ter on Mon­day night by of­fi­cers of the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) at Queen Street, Port-of-Spain, be­tween Dun­can and Nel­son streets, and re­port­ed­ly con­tained sev­er­al spent shell cas­ings and a mag­a­zine in­side.

Ev­i­dence col­lect­ed at the scene of the shoot­ing in­clud­ed 47 5.56 mm spent shell cas­ings; 37 9 mm spent shell cas­ings; and one live round of 9 mm am­mu­ni­tion.

Even though they ven­tured out of their homes at St Paul Street to go about their dai­ly rou­tines yes­ter­day, res­i­dents re­mained on height­ened alert fol­low­ing the shoot­ing.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the area, res­i­dents were seen keep­ing a watch­ful eye out de­spite the pres­ence of a marked po­lice ve­hi­cle in the fore­court of the park­ing lot of the build­ing.

Heav­i­ly armed, uni­formed of­fi­cers were seen speak­ing with res­i­dents as they too kept a watch out. De­spite the pres­ence of the law­men, res­i­dents said they were at­ten­tive to every ve­hi­cle that drove past, as one woman said, “You cyar trust no­body out here.”

Man killed in al­leged hunt for sus­pects

Hours af­ter the St Paul Street shoot­ing, heav­i­ly armed of­fi­cers stormed a rent­ed prop­er­ty at Sea Lots on Mon­day night search­ing for the sus­pects. In­stead, a Sea Lots man, Jonathan Whar­wood, was killed by the po­lice. The po­lice al­leged Whar­wood chal­lenged them with a cut­lass.

It was re­port­ed that Whar­wood chopped one of the law­men on his hel­met, lead­ing the oth­ers present to fire at him as they feared for their lives. Rel­a­tives and friends of Whar­wood claimed he was ex­e­cut­ed, and they de­mand­ed jus­tice for the wrong­ful death.

The at­mos­phere at Pro­duc­tion Av­enue, Sea Lots, was tense and volatile yes­ter­day as res­i­dents de­nounced the po­lice killing of the fa­ther of three.

“He was a good one,” a res­i­dent said. A trades­man by pro­fes­sion, Whar­wood was de­scribed as a lov­ing fa­ther and a help­ful in­di­vid­ual who was re­spon­si­ble for con­struct­ing at least 45 per cent of hous­es in the area.

Whar­wood would have turned 40 in De­cem­ber. His chil­dren, aged 18, 11 and nine, were said to be dev­as­tat­ed over their fa­ther’s death.

The fa­tal po­lice shoot­ing re­port­ed­ly oc­curred dur­ing a search of the rent­ed premis­es where Whar­wood lived in a sin­gle room.

A res­i­dent who lives with­in the en­closed premis­es and iden­ti­fied him­self on­ly as “Blinch­man” point­ed to Whar­wood’s room as he said, “Be­fore they bring the man out the room, they beat him first ... they ques­tion him, then they put him back in­side.”

He in­di­cat­ed he had been stand­ing a short dis­tance away covert­ly ob­serv­ing what was tak­ing place. “While we stand­ing up there, I hear four gun­shots go off and the po­lice­man turn and say, ‘Man down, man down, man down.’”

Blinch­man said oth­er of­fi­cers went in­to the room and one them was heard say­ing, “‘Oh God, man, is the wrong man, boy.’”

He claimed law­men dragged a bleed­ing Whar­wood out to their jeep, placed him in the tray and took him to the hos­pi­tal where he was pro­nounced dead.

Whar­wood’s dried blood re­mained on the con­crete floor­ing yes­ter­day. A fe­male rel­a­tive wept con­tin­u­ous­ly as she re­vealed Whar­wood was cook­ing cur­ry duck and sa­da bake as a late-night din­ner for those re­sid­ing on the com­pound and for oth­er young peo­ple liv­ing close by.

She said it was heart­break­ing to be awak­ened to the news of his killing, as Whar­wood was a “very qui­et per­son.” Beg­ging for his killing not to be swept un­der the car­pet, she de­nied he was “some­body to be in­volved in any kind of mis­chief.” She said Whar­wood had been work­ing ex­tra hard to pur­chase books for his chil­dren ahead of the open­ing of the new school term.

CoP: The law­less will feel the full force of the TTPS

Ex­press­ing con­cern over the St Paul Street in­ci­dent, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher warned, “This and any act of vi­o­lence com­mit­ted against any of­fi­cer of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice is ab­solute­ly un­ac­cept­able and will not be tak­en light­ly.”

She said the TTPS So­cial Work Unit stood ready to pro­vide com­pre­hen­sive psy­choso­cial sup­port to aid in Charles’ re­cov­ery process.

De­spite the in­ci­dent, Hare­wood-Christo­pher re­as­sured, “Every of­fi­cer of the TTPS is com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing the safe­ty, peace and se­cu­ri­ty of our beloved na­tion.” She said this sit­u­a­tion had spot­light­ed the “true courage and com­mit­ment of all our of­fi­cers, who dai­ly put their lives on the line to safe­guard our com­mu­ni­ties.”

She ad­mit­ted that “as an or­gan­i­sa­tion, we may be shak­en, but we re­main un­daunt­ed and res­olute in our mis­sion to up­hold the rule of law and pro­tect every per­son res­i­dent in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Hare­wood-Christo­pher said any at­tack on an of­fi­cer was an at­tack on the very foun­da­tion on which our so­ci­ety stands, “there­fore, these acts will not be tol­er­at­ed, and we will pur­sue all nec­es­sary mea­sures to bring the per­pe­tra­tors of this crime to jus­tice. Those who feel em­bold­ened to com­mit acts of law­less­ness will feel the full force of the TTPS as we in­ten­si­fy our ef­forts against all acts of crime per­pe­trat­ed against our cit­i­zens.”

Sound­ing a sim­i­lar warn­ing as Hare­wood-Christo­pher, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Suzette Mar­tin, told Guardian Me­dia, “Any­one en­gag­ing my po­lice of­fi­cers in the line of du­ty will be dealt with ac­cord­ing to law.” She as­sured, “The TTPS is com­mit­ted to the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of all our com­mu­ni­ties ... to all law en­force­ment of­fi­cers, es­pe­cial­ly the TTPS, I salute you for your brav­ery and ded­i­ca­tion to du­ty. You de­serve the ut­most re­spect and sup­port.”

Mar­tin added, “To the per­pe­tra­tors of this heinous crime, such acts of vi­o­lence against any law en­force­ment of­fi­cer will not be tol­er­at­ed.”

PCA starts probe in­to po­lice-in­volved killing

Di­rec­tor of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) David West con­firmed they had ini­ti­at­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the fa­tal in­ci­dent and that an in­ves­ti­ga­tor had been as­signed to look in­to the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the death of Whar­wood.

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion can con­tact the PCA at 226-4722, email at in­fo@pca.org.tt, or vis­it the PCA of­fices at Lev­el 24 Tow­er D, In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre, 1A Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist weighs in on Gang­land T&T

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira, mean­while, said, “The na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus now has to un­der­stand that Gang­land T&T is the prod­uct of transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime. We have had a rag­ing transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime war in T&T since 2017.”

Figueira ex­plained, “With the ap­pear­ance of the first Dons in Trinidad in the sec­ond half of the 1990s, Gang­land be­gan the process of con­trol­ling re­al es­tate and con­trol­ling ac­cess to their turf. In this era, the shoot­ing at and killing of po­lice per­son­nel was not con­sid­ered a go-to strat­e­gy of Gang­land.”

But, he added, “From 2017 to to­day, the rag­ing wars be­tween transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime in T&T—the Colom­bian and Mex­i­can busi­ness mod­els—have changed the na­ture of Gang­land for­ev­er.

“The work of the Sicar­ios in eras­ing sets/cliques/crews of en­e­my or­gan­i­sa­tions has trig­gered para­noia in the ranks of Gang­land, forc­ing them to pro­tect their spaces with vi­o­lence that is dri­ven by this para­noia. These cliques are all well armed and will seek to pro­tect their lives and turf by any means nec­es­sary as their sur­vival is now up for grabs as many of their fel­low cliques have been wiped out in the rivers of blood from 2017 to to­day. Peo­ple not vet­ted en­ter­ing their spaces to­day present clear and present dan­ger and will be dealt with for their sur­vival de­pends on it.”

Law en­force­ment needs to do what is nec­es­sary to re­gain con­trol–Seep­er­sad

Com­ment­ing on the al­leged claim by the rel­a­tive of Ce­line Saman­tha Chadee, who was gunned down with her boyfriend Wal­ter John in a car in the vicin­i­ty of the Cana­da Plan­nings, Quar­ry Road, Laven­tille, last Fri­day, that of­fi­cers had re­fused to es­cort her to the area if there was no tac­ti­cal sup­port present, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad said, “If law en­force­ment should sig­nal that kind of weak­ness to the crim­i­nal el­e­ment, then it would re­al­ly en­cour­age a whole dif­fer­ent lev­el of crim­i­nal vi­o­lence in T&T.”

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, he said, “If we reach the point where the crim­i­nal el­e­ments are no longer afraid at all of law en­force­ment and are em­bold­ened to the point where they feel of­fi­cers can be­come the vic­tims and there are prob­a­bly no reper­cus­sions to that, then you would have reached the point of say­ing crim­i­nals are now rul­ing, and that is a dan­ger­ous thing as it means that law and or­der no longer ex­ist.”

Seep­er­sad said law en­force­ment need­ed to do what was nec­es­sary to re­gain con­trol from crim­i­nal el­e­ments, even if it re­quired call­ing out the T&T Reg­i­ment to work along­side them de­ci­sive­ly.

“The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty has to act to en­sure we don’t cross that par­tic­u­lar tip­ping point.”