Close to 30 Pi­o­neer Dri­ve, Sea Lots res­i­dents marched to the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion (CPS), Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day to beg the po­lice to in­ter­vene in what they claimed is an on­go­ing in­ter­nal war in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Ja­da Mor­ris, Eleanor Grant and oth­ers com­plained that their lives were un­der threat by young men re­sid­ing close to the area that bor­ders the Wright­son Road/Beetham High­way.

The group, which was re­port­ed­ly ini­tial­ly turned away from the CPS by a fe­male po­lice of­fi­cer who ad­vised them to go to gang lead­ers to re­solve the is­sue, was lat­er giv­en an au­di­ence by act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Ju­nior Ben­jamin out­side the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing.

Res­i­dent Mor­ris said men, women and chil­dren were un­der threat by a group of men who use guns, knives, bot­tles, wood and oth­er items to beat and rob them as they walk along the Beetham High­way to and from home, work and school.

The group said be­tween Sun­day and yes­ter­day, eight peo­ple had been robbed and beat­en, whilst a ninth per­son was re­port­ed miss­ing. Of the eight at­tacks, they said one man was hos­pi­talised with se­ri­ous in­juries, while the oth­ers were treat­ed for mi­nor wounds and bruis­es.

Grant, 53, a Cepep work­er, claimed she was slapped while her son was beat­en and bat­tered as they were on their way back home at 10 am on Car­ni­val Mon­day.

Fight­ing back tears as she wait­ed to make her re­port at the CPS fol­low­ing Ben­jamin’s in­ter­ven­tion yes­ter­day, Grant ex­plained, “I went to hold rope and when we was com­ing back home, four of them at­tack meh son and while I try­ing to get the po­lice at­ten­tion, bawl­ing ‘don’t kill meh son’, one of them boys turn and slap me down.”

She said her son suf­fered bruis­es and cuts to his low­er arms. Her rel­a­tives Tim­o­thy and Si­mon Grant were al­so re­port­ed­ly at­tacked over the week­end.

Al­though the group de­cid­ed to take a stand, the res­i­dents said they were fear­ful of go­ing home af­ter three women from Sea Lots passed them in front the po­lice sta­tion and warned them the crim­i­nals were wait­ing on them.

Emerg­ing from the CPS af­ter fil­ing a for­mal re­port, Mor­ris said, “This is the first com­mu­ni­ty group to gath­er el­ders, in­clud­ing women and chil­dren, to come and ask for peace.”

One of the women lat­er lament­ed, “All we want is peace.”

Asked what the con­flict was about, the women said they did not know but added they would not hide their own rel­a­tives if they were in­volved in wrong­do­ing.

Mor­ris, even as she ac­knowl­edged the reper­cus­sions could be se­vere for many of them, de­clared, “This is some­thing brave they do­ing here.”

Ben­jamin as­sured the group that the po­lice were se­ri­ous about en­sur­ing their safe­ty and im­me­di­ate­ly mo­bilised se­nior of­fi­cers with­in the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion to as­sist the res­i­dents.

In ad­di­tion, In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) of­fi­cers were de­ployed to en­sure no one was pre­vent­ed from ac­cess­ing the area freely.

The act­ing CoP said while it was im­pos­si­ble to have po­lice pres­ence there on a 24-hour ba­sis, they had dis­patched, “of­fi­cers to bring some calm to the area.”

He com­mend­ed the res­i­dents who came out to sig­nal their dis­plea­sure with what had been oc­cur­ring, even as he ac­knowl­edged some were fear­ful of com­ing for­ward.

Ben­jamin said, “We want to be a car­ing po­lice or­gan­i­sa­tion and you are im­por­tant. It does not mat­ter who you are and where you are, we are here for you.”