SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Con­trac­tor Ken­roy Dop­well, well known in the Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty as “Big Man”, calls him­self a com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist. He is deny­ing that the “Big Man” iden­ti­fied as Ras­ta City’s gang leader in a 2019 Spe­cial Branch re­port is him.

The name “Big Man” ap­pears in the eight-page Spe­cial Branch re­port and is iden­ti­fied as one of sev­en re­put­ed gang lead­ers who had ben­e­fit­ed from state con­tracts worth close to $6 mil­lion in the Port-of-Spain and Diego Mar­tin ar­eas be­tween 2015 and 2018, ac­cord­ing to a dai­ly news­pa­per ar­ti­cle in 2019.

“Big Man” had col­lect­ed $665,000 for la­trine erad­i­ca­tion and drainage projects at Pi­o­neer Dri­ve in­clud­ing the in­stal­la­tion of a play park at Con­ces­sion Road in Sea Lots, the re­port stat­ed.

Then po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith had blamed the State for plac­ing funds in the hands of gang boss­es to fu­el wars and con­tribute to killings.

“I was clas­si­fied as the lieu­tenant of the Ras­ta City gang,” Dop­well said.

But, de­scrib­ing him­self as a busi­ness­man in a tele­phone in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian last Tues­day, Dop­well de­nied any in­volve­ment with the Port-of-Spain gang.

‘First truce has to be in Par­lia­ment with Red and Yel­low gangs’

The Sun­day Guardian reached out to Dop­well fol­low­ing re­ports of peace talks with al­leged gang lead­ers and the po­lice as the coun­try ex­pe­ri­ences a spike in crime.

Asked if these war­ring fac­tions should call a truce, Dop­well said the first peo­ple to make a peace of­fer­ing are the 41 MPs.

“Look how they does be­have in­side there (Par­lia­ment). So if that is hap­pen­ing in Par­lia­ment where it is sup­posed to have ed­u­cat­ed peo­ple, what do you ex­pect to hap­pen on the streets? What we re­al­ly do­ing is spin­ning top in mud. So the first truce has to be in Par­lia­ment where re­spect, man­ners and dis­ci­pline are sup­posed to be.

 “So when we are talk­ing about the Sixx and Sev­en gangs, let we talk about the Red and Yel­low gangs be­cause that is the two biggest gangs the coun­try have.”

Dop­well was re­fer­ring to the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion who have been en­gaged in a nev­er-end­ing bat­tle while cit­i­zens have been gripped with fear about the es­ca­lat­ing homi­cide rate.

“You can’t tell me the Par­lia­ment hav­ing bac­cha­nal in it but you don’t want Dun­can Street and St Paul Street to have bac­cha­nal. They have to op­er­ate as lead­ers for us to go in a pos­i­tive di­rec­tion.”

He said hav­ing a peace agree­ment meet­ing with gang boss­es would set them up to be iden­ti­fied and killed.

“If you go that meet­ing is like an ID pa­rade for an as­sas­si­na­tion.”

For crim­i­nals to sur­ren­der their guns and am­mu­ni­tion, Dop­well said, they would be­come de­fence­less, pow­er­less and vul­ner­a­ble.

“When they put down their guns what are you of­fer­ing them in re­turn? Will it be sus­tain­able jobs to bet­ter the lives of their fam­i­lies?”

In Sea Lots, Dop­well said, the Ras­ta City gang has a pres­ence.

“The Ras­ta City and the Sev­en gangs are the same. The Laven­tille area is dom­i­nat­ed by the Sixx and Mus­lims,” he said, stat­ing that cer­tain ar­eas of “the Flats” are al­so un­der the con­trol of the Sev­en gang.

He raised the is­sue of gangs squar­ing off with each oth­er which is be­lieved to be re­spon­si­ble for the re­cent spate of shoot­ings and mur­ders along the East-West cor­ri­dor.

Dop­well drew one con­clu­sion–that the Gov­ern­ment has been ig­nor­ing com­mu­ni­ties in need and “things have not been trick­ling down” to youths who are frus­trat­ed, un­em­ployed, hun­gry and mis­guid­ed.

“We does hear some 14, 15 and 16 year olds say­ing it is my time now. They have no fear of death be­cause some of them have been ask­ing the ques­tion, what is the sense of liv­ing? It is eas­i­er for them to die.”

The cries of these trou­bled men, he said, have been falling on deaf ears, and won­dered if any politi­cian could feel their pain.

“Is on­ly who feel it, know it. And on­ly who feel it could re­act to it.”

‘Dis­crim­i­nat­ed against be­cause of my in­volve­ment with Burks’

Dop­well, 52, said that when he shift­ed to the Sea Lots hot spot area in 1992, he used to vis­it the bas­ket­ball court to ex­er­cise but nev­er re­vealed his name to the res­i­dents. Res­i­dents gave him the nick­name “Big Man”.

Close to three decades lat­er, “Big Man” would be the la­bel for “a gang leader” in the re­port who re­ceived state con­tracts.

Ex­cept for a “COVID case”, Dop­well claimed, he was nev­er charged or ap­peared be­fore a court for join­ing a gang but ad­mit­ted that the po­lice tried to pin things on him sev­er­al times.

The ini­tial “CB” was al­so list­ed in the re­port as re­ceiv­ing $236,183.40 for three drainage and la­trine erad­i­ca­tion projects at Pro­duc­tion Av­enue.

Alias­es “Dog­gy” and “Sprang” were iden­ti­fied and ini­tials “T,” “SR” and “Su ... Y” were al­so list­ed.

Dop­well dis­closed that “CB” re­ferred to his long-stand­ing friend and busi­ness as­so­ciate Cedric “Burkie” Burke who died in 2020 of the COVID-19 virus.

Dop­well said those who do not know him will cast judge­ment and “point their fin­gers” at him.

“My per­son­al­i­ty and who you are would speak for it­self ... Some­times out of evil cometh good be­cause I am a con­trac­tor, as you know, (with) Good Vibes and Com­pa­ny Ltd. We con­tin­ue to do work, we con­tin­ue to re­ceive con­tracts and stuff like that. You still do you. I have a good record,” he said dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view on Tues­day.

 Dop­well told Guardian Me­dia in 2017 that he was a di­rec­tor on two whol­ly-owned state en­ter­pris­es–the New City Mall and East Side Plaza, Port-of-Spain–which fall un­der the re­mit of the Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment once man­aged by then PNM min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald.

Dop­well said he was dis­crim­i­nat­ed against be­cause of his ‘per­son­al’ in­volve­ment with Burke.

“We did busi­ness and every­thing to­geth­er.”

He jok­ing­ly spoke about the 2017 swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny of then Port-of-Spain South MP Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald as Pub­lic Util­i­ties min­is­ter at Pres­i­dent’s House, St Ann’s, which they at­tend­ed un­in­vit­ed.

But less than 48 hours af­ter Mc­Don­ald’s min­is­te­r­i­al ap­point­ment, fac­ing flack from the pub­lic, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley fired her, stat­ing it was a di­rect re­sult of her align­ment with Burke.

Well-known to the po­lice, Burke was ar­rest­ed on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions but re­leased.

Dop­well al­so de­nied al­le­ga­tions that his part­ner, whom he af­fec­tion­ate­ly re­ferred to as “Burks”, was a gang leader, He in­sist­ed Burke was “a very suc­cess­ful busi­ness­man”.