An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

The fam­i­ly of Em­manuel Joseph, who has been charged with the at­tempt­ed mur­der of Deputy Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Sher­wyn Bruce, is de­mand­ing to know how the 22-year-old died from car­diac ar­rest.

Mean­while, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ter­mine how he died.

Joseph was charged with the at­tempt­ed mur­der of Bruce, the at­tempt­ed mur­der of prison of­fi­cer Steve Phipps and the wound­ing of a 12-year-old girl on Oc­to­ber 11.

The fam­i­ly said they learnt of Joseph’s death through the news up­dates post­ed on so­cial me­dia, and ex­pressed out­rage with the au­thor­i­ties for be­ing kept in the dark over an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od.  

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, Joseph, who was re­mand­ed to the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre on Thurs­day, re­port­ed feel­ing un­well at 9 pm, on Fri­day.  

Af­ter a re­port was made, of­fi­cers took him to the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty. Joseph was ex­am­ined by Doc­tor Bootoor and at 10:30 pm he was pro­nounced dead. The cause of death was list­ed as car­diac ar­rest.    

How­ev­er, his sis­ter Crys­tal Charles told Guardian Me­dia at their home in San­ta Cruz yes­ter­day, that she is not sat­is­fied with what the au­thor­i­ties are say­ing is the cause of death.  

“I want the truth, no­body doesn’t like to talk the truth at all at all at all. And you see the sys­tem ... I al­ways used to tell that same one and I would tell any­body, you see the sys­tem, don’t ever get in the sys­tem,” a dis­tressed Charles said.  

She said the lack of in­for­ma­tion sur­round­ing Joseph’s death has plant­ed seeds of doubt in their minds.  

“As we say, no­body is telling us, the news puts up every­thing be­fore we know any­thing. We want a lawyer to be present be­cause they say an au­top­sy must take place, so we want the lawyer present,” the sis­ter de­clared.  

Charles ex­plained that her broth­er was not known to suf­fer from any se­ri­ous med­ical con­di­tion, adding to the con­cerns over his pass­ing.  

“He nev­er had any heart con­di­tions, the boy used to be up and down all over–he used to be smok­ing, drink­ing, lim­ing, and par­ty­ing near­ly every day, not to say he suf­fered from any­thing, the on­ly thing he suf­fered with was when he was a ba­by, his in­testines was clos­ing in, that was the on­ly thing,” Charles re­called.

Po­lice sources told Guardian Me­dia that Joseph was an in­for­mant and spoke out on the hid­den guns, am­mo, ex­plo­sives, and po­lice para­pher­na­lia that were found in two sep­a­rate ma­jor po­lice op­er­a­tions at Can­gre­jal Road in San­ta Cruz.  

The first haul was on the evening of Oc­to­ber 11 while Joseph was at a health fa­cil­i­ty for gun­shot in­juries stem­ming from the in­ci­dent un­der po­lice guard.  

The sec­ond haul was on Oc­to­ber 17 in the same area while Joseph was in po­lice cus­tody.  Joseph was sub­se­quent­ly charged last Wednes­day night.  

He ap­peared in court on Thurs­day. By Fri­day night, he was dead.

On Oc­to­ber 11, the Deputy Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er was about to en­ter an un­marked prison ve­hi­cle—a white Toy­ota For­tuner, dri­ven by Prison Of­fi­cer Phipps, which was parked in front of his house—when two masked men armed with firearms, alight­ed from a white Toy­ota Axio mo­tor ve­hi­cle and opened fire on them.  

Phipps and Bruce’s 12-year-old daugh­ter, who was in the ve­hi­cle and was in­jured, were sub­se­quent­ly tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex for med­ical at­ten­tion. Phipps was shot in the tor­so and un­der­went emer­gency surgery while Bruce’s daugh­ter sus­tained a mi­nor wound to the right leg just above the knee.  

Joseph was ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers of the North­east­ern Di­vi­sion (NED) on that same day.

He was charged by Sgt Bri­an Nixon of the NED on Wednes­day fol­low­ing ad­vice re­ceived from the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.  

Po­lice launch probe

Act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, that “from re­ports, there are no in­ci­dents or signs of vi­o­lence so, po­lice are in­volved, and in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing, I can’t say any­thing much, every­thing is fresh and like I said, in­ves­ti­ga­tions on­go­ing”.  

The Prison Ser­vice is­sued a state­ment yes­ter­day say­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched in­to the in­mate’s death. The re­lease said that he was tak­en to the Ari­ma  Health Fa­cil­i­ty af­ter com­plain­ing about chest pains. He was at­tend­ed to and sub­se­quent­ly pro­nounced dead by the at­tend­ing physi­cian.  

“The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice was in­formed and is cur­rent­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ing the mat­ter. Mr Joseph’s next of kin was con­tact­ed by an as­signed Wel­fare Of­fi­cer, who in­formed (them) of his pass­ing. The Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice ex­tends con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly and friends of Mr Em­manuel Joseph,” it added.  

Joseph was charged with two counts of at­tempt­ed mur­der, pos­ses­sion of firearm, pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion, pos­ses­sion of firearm to en­dan­ger life, and pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion to en­dan­ger life.  

Last Thurs­day, he ap­peared be­fore Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate Mau­reen Ba­boolal-Gafoor and the mat­ter was ad­journed to Oc­to­ber 24.  

–re­port­ing by Rhon­dor Dowlat