Ralph Ban­warie

Po­lice sources say a video cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia—show­ing sev­er­al men de­cap­i­tat­ing an uniden­ti­fied man in a forest­ed area—may have been record­ed in Matelot.

The vic­tim’s body has not yet been found but po­lice are ex­pect­ed to be­gin a search op­er­a­tion in the area to­day.

Sources fur­ther in­di­cat­ed that the vic­tim may be from Sans Souci and sug­gest­ed the killing may have stemmed from a drug deal gone wrong. A com­bined team of of­fi­cers is ex­pect­ed to vis­it the area as part of ef­forts to lo­cate the body.
How­ev­er, po­lice have not con­firmed these de­tails.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions about the dis­turb­ing footage, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of the East­ern Di­vi­sion, Christo­pher Pa­ponette, yes­ter­day ac­knowl­edged the sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic con­cern gen­er­at­ed by the graph­ic video.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day by the TTPS Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit, Pa­ponette said: “The footage, which ap­pears to de­pict a vi­o­lent as­sault in­volv­ing mul­ti­ple male in­di­vid­u­als in a heav­i­ly veg­e­tat­ed area, is be­ing treat­ed with the ut­most se­ri­ous­ness.”

He added, “Giv­en the dis­turb­ing na­ture of the ma­te­r­i­al, the TTPS is con­duct­ing a care­ful and co­or­di­nat­ed as­sess­ment of the video, in­clud­ing its ori­gin, au­then­tic­i­ty, lo­ca­tion, and the time­frame in which it may have been record­ed.”

Pa­ponette said in­ves­ti­ga­tors were un­able to con­firm the lo­ca­tion of the in­ci­dent or de­ter­mine whether it oc­curred in Matelot, Sans Souci, To­co, Va­len­cia or any oth­er dis­trict.

“No time­line has yet been es­tab­lished, and the iden­ti­ty of the per­son shown in the video re­mains un­con­firmed,” he said.

De­spite the un­cer­tain­ty, Pa­ponette said of­fi­cers from the East­ern Di­vi­sion, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions (HBI) and the Cy­ber Crime and So­cial Me­dia Unit, are ac­tive­ly pur­su­ing all avail­able leads.

He said in­ves­ti­ga­tors are re­view­ing in­tel­li­gence, ex­am­in­ing miss­ing per­sons re­ports and as­sess­ing all in­com­ing in­for­ma­tion to de­ter­mine whether the video is linked to any re­port­ed or un­re­port­ed of­fence.

“The TTPS is deeply con­cerned by the graph­ic and bru­tal na­ture of the im­ages be­ing shared on­line,” Pa­ponette said.

He warned that such ma­te­r­i­al can have a trau­mat­ic im­pact on the pub­lic, par­tic­u­lar­ly fam­i­lies of miss­ing per­sons, and may al­so in­ter­fere with on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“The pub­lic is strong­ly ad­vised not to cir­cu­late, re­post, or spec­u­late about the con­tents of the video,” he added.

Pa­ponette ap­pealed to any­one with in­for­ma­tion—in­clud­ing on the iden­ti­ty of in­di­vid­u­als de­pict­ed, the lo­ca­tion of the in­ci­dent, or the move­ment of sus­pects—to con­tact any East­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice sta­tion, the HBI, the Cy­ber Crime and So­cial Me­dia Unit, Crime Stop­pers at 800-8477, the TTPS Hot­line, or any po­lice sta­tion na­tion­wide.

“All in­for­ma­tion re­ceived will be treat­ed in the strictest con­fi­dence,” he as­sured.

He said while the TTPS un­der­stands the pub­lic’s de­mand for time­ly up­dates, main­tain­ing in­ves­tiga­tive in­tegri­ty, le­gal fair­ness and op­er­a­tional con­fi­den­tial­i­ty is crit­i­cal to en­sur­ing that en­quiries are not com­pro­mised.
Pa­ponette said the TTPS re­mains com­mit­ted to iden­ti­fy­ing the vic­tim, es­tab­lish­ing the facts, and bring­ing any of­fend­ers be­fore the courts.