MARK BAS­SANT

Three men who po­lice say be­longed to a gang that took its or­ders from a high-risk in­mate at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) were shot and killed by po­lice in San­ta Cruz yes­ter­day.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors told Guardian Me­dia that act­ing on cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion they vis­it­ed Vick­ey Trace, La Canoa Road in San­ta Cruz short­ly af­ter 3 pm. Of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) head­ed by Sgt Mark Her­nan­dez said they ap­proached a group of men lim­ing in the area near a tree, who be­gan act­ing sus­pi­cious­ly. Po­lice claim one of the men drew a firearm and shot at them.

The po­lice of­fi­cers re­turned fire hit­ting 21-year-old Kadeem Is­sac aka Cook­ie, 22-year-old Taj­niar Charles and 17-year-old Nicholas Seemu­n­gal.

All three men, po­lice said, had firearm-re­lat­ed of­fences pend­ing in court and were tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal but died on ar­rival. Po­lice say they re­cov­ered two pis­tols on the scene.

Se­nior in­ves­ti­ga­tors told Guardian Me­dia that they had ob­tained cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion that the men were part of a dead­ly gang tak­ing in­struc­tions to ex­e­cute pris­ons and po­lice of­fi­cers from a high-risk in­mate be­hind prison walls.

The well-con­nect­ed in­mate has al­so been fin­gered in the ex­e­cu­tion of sev­er­al wit­ness­es in the past by au­thor­i­ties.

But res­i­dents dis­put­ed the po­lice’s ver­sion of events.

Many were en­raged at the killings and gath­ered on the hill­side to vent their feel­ings to the heav­i­ly armed of­fi­cers.

“They nev­er shot any­one. They lie. They were lim­ing un­der a tree and they nev­er had any gun,” one res­i­dent shout­ed.

Al­isha Fran­cis who knew Seemu­n­gal said, “He nev­er de­served to die like that. When po­lice kill you like that, no­body ever gets jus­tice. I nev­er even got to see him they just take his body away,” she wailed.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the po­lice shoot­ing are con­tin­u­ing.