An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has re­mind­ed par­ty pro­mot­ers and pa­trons that they have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to com­ply with the law at pub­lic events, in­clud­ing the court-ap­proved clos­ing times.

TTPS pub­lic in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer ASP Owie Rus­sell said yes­ter­day that event or­gan­is­ers must en­sure the time­ly and or­der­ly tran­si­tion be­tween per­form­ers while ad­her­ing to the op­er­at­ing hours stat­ed on their li­cences.

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day’s week­ly me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain, Rus­sell said, “Ad­her­ence to an agreed event sched­ule helps to pre­vent the kind of avoid­able fric­tion and dis­or­der that can arise when these arrange­ments are not re­spect­ed.”

His com­ments came days af­ter a con­fronta­tion be­tween po­lice and Sil­ver Stars Steel Or­ches­tra mem­bers at the Tribe Car­ni­val band launch at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, on Sun­day.

It was al­leged that or­ches­tra mem­bers be­came up­set af­ter po­lice or­dered them to stop play­ing be­cause the event had reached its per­mit­ted clos­ing time.
The in­ci­dent re­sult­ed in five peo­ple be­ing ar­rest­ed and charged, while one of­fi­cer was treat­ed at hos­pi­tal af­ter al­leged­ly be­ing as­sault­ed.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing the steel­pan as T&T’s na­tion­al in­stru­ment, Rus­sell said the TTPS has the deep­est re­spect for the pan fra­ter­ni­ty but de­clined to com­ment fur­ther as the mat­ter is now be­fore the court.

The Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee (ES­CTT), in a state­ment yes­ter­day, ex­pressed con­cern for the well-be­ing of all pan­nists.

Re­fer­ring to the in­ci­dent, it said, “We note, with re­gret, that once again it is re­port­ed that mem­bers of the TTPS have dis­played a use of force pol­i­cy that is to­tal­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate to what may have been re­quired to ad­dress the sit­u­a­tion.”

The ES­CTT echoed pub­lic calls for po­lice ac­count­abil­i­ty, ask­ing why of­fi­cers did not first ap­proach band man­age­ment or the pro­mot­ers to have the per­for­mance stopped. It al­so ques­tioned why An­ti-Gang Unit mem­bers were in­volved.

De­scrib­ing the re­port­ed con­fronta­tion as “de­plorable,” the ES­CTT said such scenes had not been wit­nessed in T&T “since the vi­o­lent days of the 1960s.” It ex­pressed sol­i­dar­i­ty with Sil­ver Stars and Pan Trin­ba­go, adding:

“The steel­pan, na­tion­al in­stru­ment of T&T, born out of the re­sis­tance and re­silience of our African broth­ers and sis­ters, and our pan­nists, must be treat­ed with the re­spect it de­serves.”

The or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so urged Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro “in this racial­ly charged so­ci­ety, as an arm of the State, to please let cool­er heads pre­vail and take the lev­el of po­lice use of force against non-vi­o­lent civil­ians down.”

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Sil­ver Stars in­sist­ed: “We are not crim­i­nals. We are pro­fes­sion­al mu­si­cians and am­bas­sadors of the Na­tion­al In­stru­ment of T&T.”

The band said it prides it­self on dis­ci­pline and main­tain­ing a ster­ling rep­u­ta­tion, adding, “Sil­ver Stars was ini­tial­ly card­ed to per­form ear­li­er but, due to sev­er­al set­backs, we were even­tu­al­ly asked to per­form at the end of the event. We were not told or made aware of any per­mit re­stric­tions.

“As di­rect­ed, when the mu­sic end­ed, we had just be­gun play­ing when po­lice en­tered the band to con­front mem­bers of our rhythm sec­tion and tell them to stop. A uni­formed of­fi­cer then held our drum­mer’s hands, forc­ing him to stop play­ing, at which point the band stopped al­most en­tire­ly.”

The band claimed a man in plain clothes, whom mem­bers lat­er be­lieved to be a po­lice of­fi­cer, threw one of its in­stru­ments to the ground. Sil­ver Stars said the en­su­ing melee re­sult­ed in sev­er­al steel­pans be­ing knocked over, trap­ping play­ers be­neath in­stru­ments and stands, caus­ing in­juries and sig­nif­i­cant dam­age.

The band main­tained it had no is­sue com­ply­ing with the event per­mit and be­lieved the sit­u­a­tion stemmed from a mis­un­der­stand­ing that could have been re­solved through di­a­logue with the event pro­mot­ers or the band’s man­age­ment.

While reaf­firm­ing its com­mit­ment to work­ing with law en­force­ment, Sil­ver Stars said it could not ac­cept “the un­war­rant­ed abuse our play­ers en­dured.”

“Our play­ers are fam­i­ly. The mem­bers of Sil­ver Stars are all young, law-abid­ing cit­i­zens who have been con­tribut­ing to the steel­band art form for most of their lives.

Our hope mov­ing for­ward is that we, as a na­tion, can have greater re­spect for the steel­pan, our na­tion­al in­stru­ment, and for steel­pan per­form­ers.”