JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

With three in­ves­ti­ga­tions un­der­way in­to the fa­tal po­lice shoot­ing of Josi­ah Sama­roo, rel­a­tives of three young men killed by po­lice near­ly four years ago have come for­ward to of­fer sup­port to his fam­i­ly—and to call for the res­ig­na­tion of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro.

Leo Williams, whose son Leonar­do was killed in a po­lice shoot­ing on Ju­ly 2, 2022, said Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro’s re­cent state­ment of­fer­ing coun­selling to the of­fi­cers in­volved, amid calls for their sus­pen­sion, was grounds for res­ig­na­tion.

“The on­ly mes­sage I have to send to the new com­mis­sion­er is to step down. Look what hap­pened, and he’s say­ing the po­lice need coun­selling in a case like that? ... on CCTV footage where the world can see Sama­roo be­ing killed,” Williams said.

“How could he say that? He needs to step down. (Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger) Alexan­der al­so needs to step down.”

Leonar­do Williams, 17-year-old Isa­iah Roberts and 21-year-old Fabi­an Richards were killed dur­ing a po­lice op­er­a­tion, af­ter of­fi­cers claimed they were shot at and re­turned fire. How­ev­er, au­top­sy re­ports re­vealed all three were shot from be­hind.

A 15-year-old sur­vivor of the in­ci­dent claimed the de­ceased had sur­ren­dered af­ter crash­ing out­side Re­pub­lic Bank at In­de­pen­dence Square, fol­low­ing a chase from Diego Mar­tin, but were still shot. While po­lice said a firearm was re­cov­ered at the scene, nei­ther of the two sur­vivors was charged.

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) lat­er rec­om­mend­ed that three of­fi­cers face an in­quest. How­ev­er, the sta­tus of the in­ter­nal po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­mains un­clear.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia out­side her Beetham Gar­dens home yes­ter­day, Fabi­an Richards’ moth­er, Nicole Richards, said the pain of rais­ing her grand­daugh­ter with­out her fa­ther re­mains a dai­ly re­minder that jus­tice has yet to be served.

She de­scribed the emo­tion­al toll of the past 43 months as she and oth­er rel­a­tives con­tin­ued to seek an­swers, and urged the Sama­roo fam­i­ly not to give up.

On Jan­u­ary 20, Sama­roo was shot 19 times by po­lice. CCTV footage showed that af­ter he put his hands out of his crashed car in sur­ren­der along Bassie Street, St Au­gus­tine, fol­low­ing a high-speed chase, of­fi­cers opened fire, killing him and in­jur­ing his com­mon-law wife, Ka­ia Sealy. Sealy was shot in the back and is now paral­ysed.

Rel­a­tives of the cou­ple staged a protest on Sun­day and are ex­pect­ed to demon­strate again to­mor­row out­side the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing. Fam­i­lies of the three young men have pledged their sup­port to the Sama­roo fam­i­ly in their fight for jus­tice.

Williams urged the rel­a­tives to re­main stead­fast, in­sist­ing jus­tice must be pur­sued for all vic­tims of po­lice killings. He said footage ex­ists of his son’s killing and, as with Sama­roo’s case, called for it to be made pub­lic. He al­so re­it­er­at­ed sup­port for the use of po­lice body cam­eras, say­ing they would pro­tect both of­fi­cers and civil­ians.

“The po­lice mur­der our chil­dren in cold blood down­town Port-of-Spain and noth­ing hap­pens. No jus­tice,” Williams said.

“Where is the DPP? Where is the PCA? Where is the jus­tice sys­tem in Trinidad and To­ba­go? They didn’t just take our chil­dren— they took the grand­chil­dren they would have giv­en us.”

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed TTPS com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Joanne Archie for an up­date on the sta­tus of the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the case, but up to press time no re­sponse was re­ceived.