An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Four months af­ter Joshua Sama­roo was al­leged­ly killed by po­lice of­fi­cers dur­ing a dra­mat­ic shootout in St Au­gus­tine, the case took a shock­ing twist yes­ter­day, af­ter di­rec­tions were giv­en for his girl­friend, Ka­ia Sealy, to be charged with manslaugh­ter in his death.

The di­rec­tive from the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard was hand­ed down hours af­ter the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro an­nounced, dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day morn­ing, that the all-clear had been giv­en for a se­ries of crim­i­nal charges to be laid in the mat­ter but re­fused to say who would be charged or the na­ture of the charges to be laid.

In a sub­se­quent me­dia re­lease, how­ev­er, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) con­firmed sev­er­al war­rants had been is­sued for the ar­rest of Sealy.

The re­lease said, “Act­ing on the ad­vice of the DPP, in­ves­ti­ga­tors con­duct­ed fur­ther en­quiries and ob­tained war­rants for the ar­rest of Ka­ia Sealy of Bam­boo Set­tle­ment No. 1, Val­sayn for the fol­low­ing of­fences: Three counts of shoot­ing with in­tent to cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm at the po­lice, con­trary to Sec­tion 12 of the Of­fences Against the Per­son Act, Chap­ter 11:08, in re­la­tion to the in­ci­dent which oc­curred on Jan­u­ary 20th, 2026, at the cor­ner of Col­lege Road and Bassie Street Ex­ten­sion, St Au­gus­tine.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, a war­rant has been is­sued for the of­fence of: Manslaugh­ter, con­trary to com­mon law, in that on Jan­u­ary 20th, 2026, at the cor­ner of Col­lege Road and Bassie Street Ex­ten­sion, St Au­gus­tine, Ka­ia Sealy un­law­ful­ly killed Joshua Sama­roo, in ad­di­tion to oth­er re­lat­ed charges.”

The TTPS un­der­scored, “At this time, the war­rants have not yet been ex­e­cut­ed.”

Dur­ing yes­ter­day’s brief­ing, Gue­var­ro ad­mit­ted he was con­strained in an­swer­ing re­lat­ed ques­tions, as there was an “out­stand­ing is­sue” which need­ed to be re­solved be­fore they could pro­vide any fur­ther in­for­ma­tion.

He said, “In­ves­ti­ga­tors were di­rect­ed to pro­ceed with a se­ries of crim­i­nal charges aris­ing out of the events which un­fold­ed on that fate­ful day. At this time, how­ev­er, it is im­por­tant to note that no one is yet in cus­tody or charged.”

At that time, he al­so rub­bished a me­dia re­port that the of­fi­cers in­volved in the mat­ter were to be charged.

Sealy was re­port­ed­ly shot mul­ti­ple times by po­lice of­fi­cers dur­ing the in­ci­dent and was left paral­ysed as a re­sult.

Guardian Me­dia was told she was lat­er flown to the Unit­ed States, where she has been re­ceiv­ing dai­ly med­ical treat­ment while stay­ing with fam­i­ly.

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers yes­ter­day said Sealy now has the op­tion of re­turn­ing to T&T of her own vo­li­tion, but if she re­fus­es, there are ex­tra­di­tion treaties in place be­tween T&T and the US that can be used by of­fi­cers to bring her back home. They al­so clar­i­fied that at no time dur­ing yes­ter­day’s me­dia brief­ing did Gue­var­ro state that po­lice of­fi­cers were to be charged in con­nec­tion with the mat­ter.

The shoot­ing in­ci­dent had sent shock­waves of anger and out­rage across all sec­tors of so­ci­ety, with many call­ing for the of­fi­cers in­volved to be dis­ci­plined.

Al­though a de­ci­sion by Gue­var­ro not to sus­pend any of the of­fi­cers was met with scorn, dis­dain and dis­gust then, he had con­tin­ued to call for calm and urged the pub­lic to wait un­til the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was com­plet­ed.

A video record­ing that lat­er sur­faced al­leged­ly showed Sama­roo, a fa­ther of two, hold­ing his hands out­side the ve­hi­cle in an ap­par­ent sign of sur­ren­der when of­fi­cers opened fire. Sama­roo, 31, along with Sealy, were both rushed to hos­pi­tal, where Sama­roo was pro­nounced dead.

Sealy, 24, a hair­dress­er and moth­er of one, un­der­went treat­ment and was in and out of the hos­pi­tal fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent.

Sealy’s friends, among them Alyssa Phillip and Mari­ah Wal­cott, sub­se­quent­ly led sev­er­al protests demon­stra­tions as they called for jus­tice in the mat­ter.

Yes­ter­day, Phillip ex­pressed shock over the de­ci­sion and lat­er said, “Cur­rent­ly, I am re­al­ly up­set and try­ing to process this ab­solute cor­rup­tion.”

Re­spond­ing to the lat­est de­vel­op­ments last evening, Sama­roo’s fa­ther Christo­pher Sama­roo’s lone re­sponse was, “Lie.”

His sis­ter, Chris­tine, said they were just as shocked as every­one else.

Mean­while, in a me­dia re­lease last night, the PCA said in­ci­dents of this na­ture con­tin­ue to high­light the im­por­tance of body-worn cam­eras for po­lice of­fi­cers, adding that such de­vices can pro­vide an ob­jec­tive record of events and help re­duce dis­crep­an­cies and spec­u­la­tion sur­round­ing in­ci­dents.

The PCA said de­spite the ab­sence of body-worn cam­era footage in this case, in­ves­ti­ga­tors are con­tin­u­ing to ex­am­ine oth­er ev­i­dence col­lect­ed dur­ing the probe to gain greater clar­i­ty on the se­quence of events.

My client in shock, says at­tor­ney

Ka­ia Sealy Sealy’s at­tor­ney, Fay­ola Sandy, yes­ter­day is­sued the fol­low­ing state­ment on Sealy’s be­half:

“Ms Ka­ia Sealy has to­day be­come aware of pub­lic state­ments is­sued by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice in­di­cat­ing that war­rants have been ob­tained for her ar­rest aris­ing out of the trag­ic events of 20 Jan­u­ary 2026.

“Ms Sealy is shocked and deeply dis­tressed by the de­ci­sion to pur­sue crim­i­nal charges against her, par­tic­u­lar­ly in cir­cum­stances where she her­self sus­tained cat­a­stroph­ic and life-al­ter­ing in­juries dur­ing the in­ci­dent which left her paral­ysed and re­sult­ed in the death of her com­mon-law hus­band, Joshua Sama­roo.

“To date, nei­ther Ms Sealy nor her le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tives have been for­mal­ly served with the war­rants or pro­vid­ed with any de­tailed ex­pla­na­tion of the fac­tu­al or le­gal ba­sis up­on which these charges are said to arise.

“Ms Sealy has con­sis­tent­ly co­op­er­at­ed with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties through­out the course of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion notwith­stand­ing her se­vere med­ical con­di­tion and on­go­ing treat­ment.

“As the mat­ter is now clear­ly the sub­ject of ac­tive crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings, it would be in­ap­pro­pri­ate to com­ment in de­tail on the al­le­ga­tions be­ing ad­vanced. How­ev­er, Ms Sealy main­tains her in­no­cence and in­tends to ful­ly de­fend the charges through the prop­er le­gal process.

“It is al­so im­por­tant to note that Ms Sealy was pre­vi­ous­ly grant­ed leave by the High Court to pur­sue Ju­di­cial Re­view pro­ceed­ings against the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice con­cern­ing the re­fusal of re­quests made un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act re­lat­ing to the shoot­ing in­ci­dent and the sur­round­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion. No fur­ther de­tailed com­ment will be made at this time while le­gal ad­vice and the ap­pro­pri­ate pro­ce­dur­al steps are be­ing con­sid­ered.”

Time­line in Joshua Sama­roo case

Jan­u­ary 20 – Joshua Sama­roo and Ka­ia Sealy are shot while in their car fol­low­ing a po­lice chase, which start­ed from Mal­oney and end­ed in St Au­gus­tine

Feb­ru­ary 2 – Alyssa Phillip and Mo­ri­ah Wal­cott lead pro­tes­tors out­side the Red House.

Feb­ru­ary 5 – Pro­tes­tors gath­er out­side the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, call­ing for Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro to go.

Feb­ru­ary 12 – Protest out­side the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion.

Feb­ru­ary 25 – Protest out­side the Tu­na­puna Po­lice Sta­tion.

March 4 – Protest out­side the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion.

March 11 – Protest out­side the San Juan Po­lice Sta­tion.

March 18 – Protest out­side the Mor­vant Po­lice Sta­tion.

March 25 – Protest out­side the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion.

April 1 – Protest out­side the Four Roads Po­lice Sta­tion.

April 8 – Protest out­side the Ari­ma Po­lice Sta­tion.

April 16 – Protest out­side the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion.

May 21 – The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice an­nounces that Ka­ia Sealy is to be charged in con­nec­tion with the death of Joshua Sama­roo and oth­er mat­ters re­lat­ed to the shoot­ing.