Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

The so­cial un­rest that gripped East Port-of-Spain last Mon­day brought back painful mem­o­ries for Dar­ren Joseph whose preg­nant wife was killed two years ago.

In June 2020, 30-year-old Or­nel­la Greaves, a moth­er of five, was shot dead while look­ing on at protests in the Beetham Gar­dens area. Po­lice re­ports at that time stat­ed that she was among a group of res­i­dents who were near Ninth Street as the protest over the po­lice-in­volved killings of three men in Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, Mor­vant, es­ca­lat­ed.

Then po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith de­nied claims by res­i­dents that Greaves had been killed by po­lice, but in a re­lease on Ju­ly 1, the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) sug­gest­ed oth­er­wise. Al­though the cause of the death was in­con­clu­sive, two weeks ago the PCA com­plet­ed its in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to her death and found po­lice of­fi­cers may have been cul­pa­ble in the mat­ter. The find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions have been sent to the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

He feels a “bit bet­ter” about the PCA’s lat­est up­date on who may have killed her, but at the same time, he hopes that “jus­tice will be swift” in iden­ti­fy­ing her killer.

Beetham Gar­dens was qui­et on Thurs­day morn­ing, a far cry from the tyres burn­ing, block­ing off streets and noisy protests that sur­round­ing neigh­bour­hoods in East Port-of-Spain ex­pe­ri­enced three days be­fore.

Joseph, who spoke to the Sun­day Guardian at his home in Beetham Gar­dens, said the lat­est so­cial un­rest in Port-of-Spain which fol­lowed the shoot­ing of three Beetham men last week Sat­ur­day in the city, is a re­sult of the po­lice be­ing heavy-hand­ed in the low­er-in­come East Port-of-Spain ar­eas.

Peo­ple are cry­ing out for help in the ar­eas from years of ne­glect, and they are hurt­ing when they feel they are be­ing sub­ject­ed to fur­ther in­jus­tice, he added.

“I be­lieve that we should all keep the law, but we have to ad­mit that peo­ple are cry­ing out over the way that we are be­ing treat­ed. The po­lice should show more re­spect for peo­ple. Peo­ple in my area feel hurt and pain. When peo­ple are this hurt, they do things,” he added.

Two years af­ter his wife’s death, Joseph and his four chil­dren–Je­re­mi­ah, 12; An­gel, eight; Je­re­mie, five; and Mari­ah, three, as well as her daugh­ter, 15, from a pre­vi­ous re­la­tion­ship—are still griev­ing.

“I still miss her. The chil­dren still ask for her. She’ll al­ways be part of our lives,” a grief-strick­en Joseph said.

Joseph said life was a con­tin­u­ous strug­gle. He does not have per­ma­nent em­ploy­ment and takes odd jobs to sur­vive and feed his fam­i­ly.

“I do any­thing le­gal to sur­vive. The last mon­ey I earned was last week work­ing, tak­ing up and sell­ing scrap iron. We fill up the bins and the trucks take them and car­ry them away. I get so­cial as­sis­tance of just un­der $2,000 month­ly from the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment, but I have two boys and two girls and that doesn’t go a long way. Food is ex­pen­sive. One school book is so cost­ly. I have to pay for ca­ble TV. I re­al­ly need a per­ma­nent job.”

He al­so crit­i­cised Laven­tille West MP Fitzger­ald Hinds for “not do­ing enough” to as­sist him af­ter the death of his wife and al­so not do­ing enough to as­sist the con­stituen­cy.

“He called me, but when I asked him when he would vis­it my home, he blunt­ly said that he not com­ing here for peo­ple to throw wa­ter on him. I was shocked by his cold re­sponse. All he wants is our votes and noth­ing more.”

The Sun­day Guardian reached out to Hinds, but he did not an­swer.