An­na-Lisa Paul

“The sys­tem is fail­ing the youths of Laven­tille.”

This was the cry from one woman yes­ter­day, as she warned that res­i­dents are fed up with be­ing tar­get­ed by the po­lice and ad­vo­cat­ed for greater op­por­tu­ni­ties and a wider ac­cep­tance of res­i­dents who live in Laven­tille.

Her call came hours af­ter the death of lo­cal en­ter­tain­er Ja­heim Joseph, who was killed dur­ing a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing on Sat­ur­day night.

Joseph, 19, of Man­go Al­ley, Laven­tille, was re­port­ed­ly shot by of­fi­cers of the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) around 7 pm.

An up and com­ing artiste with sev­er­al lo­cal hits such as Long Live B Man, War, KRR and Nah Play, Joseph, who is a for­mer Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege grad­u­ate, went by the moniker Chucky Blan­co in the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try.

An­gry res­i­dents yes­ter­day burned de­bris and blocked the road­way in the com­mu­ni­ty as they protest­ed the killing of some­one they said was an am­bi­tious young man and a men­tor for many in the area.

IATF of­fi­cers claimed they were con­duct­ing op­er­a­tions at Man­go Al­ley on Sat­ur­day when they came across a group of men lim­ing in a track. It is al­leged that one of the men point­ed a gun at the of­fi­cers, who opened fire on him, which was in keep­ing with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) Use of Force Pol­i­cy.

Af­ter the group scat­tered, Joseph was found with sev­er­al gun­shots about the body.

The of­fi­cers chased af­ter the oth­er men and stormed a near­by house where a child’s birth­day par­ty was in progress with their guns drawn, fright­en­ing chil­dren and adults alike.

Al­though Joseph was lat­er tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, he was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.

Of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly re­cov­ered two firearms at the scene.

How­ev­er, this claim was yes­ter­day rub­bished by an­gry men and women in the com­mu­ni­ty.

One man, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said, “Chucky nev­er had a crim­i­nal record, he was not known to the po­lice. He was one of the good ones.”

In­sist­ing this was a po­lice killing that will not be left un­avenged, an­oth­er man warned, “Po­lice want to pick up fire rage for peo­ple…”

Claim­ing there was a ten­sion now in the area, a third per­son said, “This is mur­der.”

An el­der­ly woman al­so vent­ed her frus­tra­tion as she cried, “The sys­tem is fail­ing our youths, es­pe­cial­ly those from Laven­tille. He was a lo­cal artiste who was now com­ing up in so­ci­ety and our sys­tem is killing them. This is re­al un­fair. These chil­dren are grow­ing up in a so­ci­ety where they are go­ing to rebel.”

In a 2019 Youtube post, Joseph shared his dream of be­com­ing the biggest dance­hall artiste to emerge from T&T. He wrote: “On Au­gust 23, 2019, I made a de­ci­sion to be­come the biggest dance­hall artiste out of Trinidad and To­ba­go. I made a beat and record­ed a song us­ing on­ly a lap­top and a Sam­sung head­set as my mi­cro­phone. The track was re­leased the fol­low­ing day and be­came an in­stant hit.”

A fol­low­er of the Is­lam­ic faith up to the time of his death, Joseph’s broth­er, who re­fused to state his name, said, “He was a re­al in­tel­li­gent young man, he was a leader for younger boys in the neigh­bour­hood and it is a big loss to every­one.”

In­sist­ing that a lot of peo­ple did not tru­ly know the ex­tent of Joseph’s am­bi­tion and ed­u­ca­tion, the griev­ing man went on, “He was not known to the po­lice. He was a dri­ven young man and if you see him out­side, it is be­cause he out look­ing for work and mov­ing to ad­vance his mu­sic ca­reer.”

Ques­tioned about re­ports that he had pulled a gun on of­fi­cers, Joseph’s broth­er de­nied this, say­ing, “He was an in­side per­son and if he was out­side in the view of eyes, it would have been be­cause of the younger ones who he was al­ways talk­ing with them, teach­ing them to ride bike or play foot­ball.”

Joseph’s girl­friend, who al­so de­clined to be named, re­ferred to the sud­den death as, “shock­ing and un­ex­pect­ed be­cause he just wasn’t about that life.”

Hold­ing back tears, she added, “It hurts to get a call home when you in your bed sleep­ing that your boyfriend’s passed away.”

Not­ing that Joseph had be­gun singing for fun, she said she had al­ways been sup­port­ive of his dreams to start a busi­ness, build his own home and she smiled as she said, “He al­ways want­ed ten chil­dren.”