SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Al­most 18 months af­ter he was ar­rest­ed and charged with set­ting fire to the Min­istry of Health’s build­ing in Port-of-Spain, Jean Paul Coop­er was shot dead by po­lice at his St Ann’s home on Sat­ur­day.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, the of­fi­cers went to Coop­er’s Fondes Aman­des home around 4.30 pm on Sat­ur­day to ar­rest him as he was on an out­stand­ing war­rant. The of­fi­cers said Coop­er was found burn­ing rub­bish with a cut­lass in his hand. The of­fi­cers said Coop­er tried to at­tack them with the cut­lass, caus­ing them to be­come fear­ful for their lives and shoot him.

The 29-year-old, who had styled him­self as the “Re­sis­tance” and the com­man­der in chief of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Unit­ed Pow­er, which protest­ed against COVID-19 mea­sures, was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed his St Ann’s home yes­ter­day, where rel­a­tives chal­lenged the po­lice of­fi­cers’ claims of what oc­curred.

A close rel­a­tive, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied, said Coop­er was burn­ing rub­bish but he did not have any cut­lass.

“Po­lice came around the house, both front and back and up­on see­ing him, they shot him in his back, in his chest area from the back. He got shot and he took off run­ning and he ran a lit­tle low­er down the hill, where they catch up to him again, when he col­lapsed,” the rel­a­tive said.

She claimed Coop­er was still alive when he was placed in the po­lice ve­hi­cle to be tak­en to the hos­pi­tal.

“When they picked him up and put him in the van he was still alive be­cause he bawl out and when he bawl out, they heard one more shot again in­to the van and that was it. When I went in the hos­pi­tal, they said he was al­ready dead when he came and the staff said the po­lice said he fight back with them,” the rel­a­tive claimed.

She said Coop­er, who was out on bail and had al­so been charged with pos­ses­sion of a firearm with­out a li­cense, had been marked for death by of­fi­cers. She claimed the of­fi­cers had been com­ing to Coop­er’s home for the past two weeks search­ing for him.

“They kept com­ing up all hours of the day and night with Task Force, when­ev­er you ask for in­for­ma­tion, war­rant, no­body show­ing you any­thing, no­body telling you any­thing about no war­rant, they ent telling you their name, their badge num­ber, any­thing. They were com­ing up in the day and night, run­ning through all around, they just want­ed him,” the rel­a­tive said.

Coop­er for­mal­ly lived in Diego Mar­tin but the rel­a­tive said he moved to Fondes Aman­des af­ter he was re­leased on bail for the ar­son at­tack on the Min­istry of Health’s build­ing.

Po­lice be­lieved Coop­er was al­so re­spon­si­ble for van­dal­is­ing sev­er­al build­ings in the cap­i­tal with his an­ti-COVID-19 con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries, in­clud­ing Guardian Me­dia’s head­quar­ters on St Vin­cent Street, First Cit­i­zens bank and Sco­tia­bank, the clock out­side Nicholas Tow­ers and the Cipri­ani Statute on In­de­pen­dence Square.

The rel­a­tive claimed Coop­er said he was fear­ful for his life as he was be­ing ha­rassed by po­lice of­fi­cers in Diego Mar­tin.

The rel­a­tive said one of the con­di­tions of Coop­er’s bail was that he at­tend a men­tal health clin­ic. She said the last time he at­tend­ed, the med­ical staff want­ed to ad­min­is­ter his med­ica­tion via in­jec­tion, but Coop­er de­clined as he was on his own dur­ing that vis­it and would have had no one to ac­com­pa­ny him home.

“That in­jec­tion, it does cause you to pass out and you doesn’t know your­self. No­body didn’t go with him in the clin­ic, so who was go­ing to take care of him in the clin­ic when they give him the in­jec­tion to make sure he reach home?” she asked.

Asked whether Coop­er had dis­cussed his le­gal trou­bles with her, the rel­a­tive said he would some­times talk about it but she paid it no mind.

“He used to talk but I nev­er re­al­ly used to lis­ten, some things you don’t al­ways have to know.”

She does not be­lieve there will be any jus­tice for Coop­er’s death, as she claimed po­lice of­fi­cers had al­ready spread their own nar­ra­tive about the in­ci­dent.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed the TTPS’ Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion Of­fi­cer, ASP Sheri­don Hill, for com­ment. Hill said if Coop­er’s fam­i­ly had any ev­i­dence that coun­ters the po­lice ac­count, they should come for­ward.

As to their claims that Coop­er was mur­dered by the of­fi­cers, Hill said an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which will be over­seen by both the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau and the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty, would de­ter­mine whether the of­fi­cers were cul­pa­ble.

“All po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings, whether fa­tal or not, the in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tact­ed by a first di­vi­sion of­fi­cer and su­per­vised by the PSB and the file is sub­mit­ted to the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions for rec­om­men­da­tions. If the ev­i­dence sug­gests that the po­lice of­fi­cers are cul­pa­ble, then the of­fi­cers are charged,” Hill said.

Hill said a First Di­vi­sion of­fi­cer is any of­fi­cer of the rank as­sis­tant su­per­in­ten­dent and above.