Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith has come out swing­ing in de­fence of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) of­fi­cers who have been ac­cused of open­ing fire and killing at least two peo­ple in San­ta Cruz on Fri­day night.

And while the friends of Rochy­on King Ashter­man, 19, want to see jus­tice served in this in­stance, Grif­fith is call­ing for the pub­lic to be fair to his of­fi­cers, who are al­so fight­ing for their lives every time they en­counter crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

The dead­ly shoot­ing, which oc­curred just op­po­site the Em­pire Bar along La Canoa Road around 9 pm, left Ashter­man and a fe­male friend dead.

The two re­port­ed­ly died in­side the car Ashter­man had been dri­ving. A third civil­ian who was lim­ing out­side the bar and was in­jured dur­ing the in­ci­dent was hos­pi­talised up to last evening. The fourth per­son in­jured dur­ing the shoot­ing was a po­lice of­fi­cer, who was shot in the leg an treat­ed at hos­pi­tal and dis­charged.

The woman’s iden­ti­ty has not yet been re­leased by po­lice and res­i­dents of La Canoa yes­ter­day re­port­ed she was not from the area.

Ashter­man, of Arou­ca, was the son of pop­u­lar DJ Rod­ney “Fire­ball” King.

Deny­ing claims by po­lice that they re­turned fire af­ter Ashter­man and the oc­cu­pants of the car opened fire on them, close friends of the de­ceased yes­ter­day ac­cused masked of­fi­cers of com­mit­ting the lat­est po­lice killings.

The young busi­ness­man was yes­ter­day de­scribed by friends as a cre­ative in­di­vid­ual who was as­pir­ing to make mon­ey and help oth­ers on the way to the top.

De­clin­ing to pro­vide his name, one of Ashter­man’s friends who was with him be­fore the in­ci­dent, said, “I didn’t know when he left and by the time I walk out­side, I missed him. I asked for him and they say he went for a dri­ve to come back and with­in that time…he reach­ing right by the cor­ner, eye-wit­ness­es say the po­lice pull in front of him and or­dered them to wind down the glass and put their hands out­side, and when they do that…po­lice start shoot­ing the car.”

He claimed the masked of­fi­cers had been dri­ving a black un­marked X-Trail, but a pho­to re­leased by the TTPS last evening showed a white ve­hi­cle with a bro­ken front light and scratch­es on the right cor­ner of the bumper and hood.

Un­able to say who the woman in the car was and where she was from, the vis­i­bly up­set man said Ashter­man had come to meet with him and sev­er­al oth­ers re­gard­ing their busi­ness out­fit called “Mon­ey City.”

De­scribed as an up and com­ing t-shirt en­tre­pre­neur who was fo­cused on at­tract­ing younger per­sons want­i­ng hip and fresh de­signs, Ashter­man’s friend con­tin­ued, “He went to take the per­son to get some­thing to eat when this hap­pened. He was al­ways full of joy and try­ing to make peo­ple laugh.”

When Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed vis­it­ed the area yes­ter­day, res­i­dents re­mained tight-lipped about the in­ci­dent.

The on­ly vis­i­ble signs of the shoot­ing re­mained bul­let holes in the ex­ter­nal walls of the Em­pire Bar and the chipped con­crete ta­bles and bench­es.

A sec­ond friend of de­ceased man said when they at­tempt­ed to iden­ti­fy Ashter­man’s body at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal on Fri­day night, they were pre­vent­ed by po­lice who di­rect­ed them to go to the Foren­sic Sci­ences Cen­tre, St. Clair, to­mor­row.

He said Ashter­man’s moth­er was al­so not al­lowed to see the body as a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion had to be done.

De­mand­ing jus­tice for the vic­tim, who left be­hind two younger sis­ters, the up­set friend added, “He had no crim­i­nal his­to­ry, no record, noth­ing.

“He was a graph­ic de­sign­er and we had our own per­son­al com­pa­ny. He wasn’t on no crime and was al­ways try­ing to mo­ti­vate peo­ple around him. It re­al hard know­ing po­lice kill one of our broth­ers and we can’t do any­thing about it. We can’t write a re­port or go by any­one to fight for jus­tice for him. He was al­ways hard­work­ing and help­ing oth­ers.”

Of­fi­cers shot at first—CoP

In an of­fi­cial re­lease yes­ter­day, CoP Gary Grif­fith said the SORT team was con­duct­ing an ex­er­cise in the area when they at­tempt­ed to stop a ve­hi­cle with two oc­cu­pants as “they had rea­son to and the of­fi­cers were fired up­on.

Grif­fith added, “It is amaz­ing that res­i­dents al­ways have bion­ic eyes when the po­lice are de­fend­ing their lives against im­mi­nent threats, but of the 340-plus per­sons killed this year, for some in that same area, with the same bion­ic eyes, they con­ve­nient­ly wear blink­ers and see noth­ing nor do they seem to be con­cerned, be­cause you nev­er hear their voic­es when gang mem­bers kill in­no­cent per­sons.”

Grif­fith al­so showed a pic­ture of part of a ve­hi­cle with bul­let holes.

“These are the “imag­i­nary bul­lets” that hit the po­lice ve­hi­cle that was shot at in the po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing in San­ta Cruz,” he said.

Grif­fith urged these per­sons to find a new sto­ry to tell.

He added, “A po­lice of­fi­cer got shot and the pa­thet­ic ex­cus­es by these con­ve­nient sym­pa­this­ers, in ar­eas where po­lice are fired up­on and re­spond by re­turn­ing fire to de­fend them­selves, are bor­ing now. What would they claim? Did the of­fi­cer shoot him­self to find an ex­cuse to fire back? No! The of­fi­cer was shot at. They tried to kill him. For those who re­fer to the vic­tims as “in­no­cent” peo­ple, this says a lot about these sym­pa­thiz­ers’ char­ac­ter.”

The re­lease said the in­jured per­sons were tak­en to the Port of Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal to seek med­ical at­ten­tion but were pro­nounced dead on ar­rival. It said the in­jured po­lice of­fi­cer was treat­ed and lat­er dis­charged, adding a loaded firearm and am­mu­ni­tion were re­cov­ered in the ve­hi­cle.

How­ev­er, this bit of in­for­ma­tion con­tra­dict­ed what of­fi­cers of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion had to say. Po­lice sources said no firearm was re­cov­ered in the ve­hi­cle, but a mag­a­zine was re­cov­ered in an aban­doned ve­hi­cle that was close to where the oth­er ve­hi­cle was parked. Of­fi­cers in the di­vi­sion said they were al­so yet to re­ceive a re­port from the SORT.

SORT mem­bers are part of an elite unit who an­swer di­rect­ly to Grif­fith. The unit was formed to gath­er in­tel­li­gence and con­duct covert op­er­a­tions.