Rel­a­tives of two teenagers, who were among the five friends killed by po­lice in a shoot­ing in Laven­tille on Thurs­day night, are main­tain­ing that they were ex­e­cut­ed by po­lice.

While Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith main­tained yes­ter­day that the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) of­fi­cers were act­ing in self-de­fence, as the men shot at them first, the teenagers’ griev­ing rel­a­tives re­peat­ed­ly said they and their friends were play­ing a game of cards and un­armed when they were bru­tal­ly cut down by po­lice.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme ear­ly yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said the in­ci­dent was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the head of the Homi­cide Bu­reau, but he still sought to give a brief ac­count of what al­leged­ly tran­spired.

Ac­cord­ing to Grif­fith, around 9.30 pm the of­fi­cers were on a “ba­sic” mo­bile pa­trol along Up­per Whar­ton Street, Trou Macaque, Laven­tille, when they were “greet­ed by gun­fire.”

“They called for back­up through the op­er­a­tional com­mand cen­tre and there was an ex­change of gun­fire,” Grif­fith said.

He said the five sus­pects were wound­ed and one of the of­fi­cers was shot in his chest but the bul­let did not pierce his bul­let-proof vest.

How­ev­er, in a sub­se­quent press re­lease, the TTPS said: “The Com­mis­sion­er is now ques­tion­ing what kind of “card game” would re­sult in an of­fi­cer be­ing shot at and be­ing pos­si­bly killed, from a bul­let which pen­e­trat­ed his jack­et and grazed the up­per left side of the chest.”

The vic­tims were tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where they were pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.

They were iden­ti­fied as Ser­vol stu­dent Kadeem Phillip-Williams, 17, Sha­keem Fran­cois, 15, Nicholas Bark­er, Mechack “Ni­tro” Dou­glas, 24 and Se­an­dell “Crash” St Clair.

Dou­glas and St Clair were re­port­ed­ly well known to po­lice, who claimed they were want­ed for ques­tion­ing in re­la­tion to the mur­der of Dar­ren “Cow­man” King, who was killed on April 18.

But in an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian, Phillip-Williams’ oth­er broth­er, Kurt, claimed his broth­er, Fran­cois and Bark­er were col­lat­er­al dam­age, as the po­lice ap­peared to have come di­rect­ly for Dou­glas and St Clair.

“I don’t know about the oth­ers but them teenagers was not in any­thing. They was just play­ing cards and smok­ing a lit­tle weed. I not ly­ing for any­body,” Phillip-Williams’ broth­er Cur­ty said.

While he and oth­er rel­a­tives were not there at the time, they said they were told what tran­spired by some of the men’s friends, who were able to run away and hide in some near­by bush­es just as the of­fi­cers ar­rived.

“They crawl down there and was play­ing dead. They hear and see every­thing they (the po­lice) say and do,” he said.

He claimed all five men sur­ren­dered to po­lice be­fore the shoot­ing be­gan.

“They tell Mechack that he like to shoot peo­ple in they head and then they do just that. He had his hands up in the air,” he said.

“How could you open fire on men af­ter they put their hands up in the air?” an­oth­er asked.

Phillip-Williams’ rel­a­tives at­tempt­ed to recre­ate the scene as they sat, stood and crawled next to pools of con­gealed blood on a so­fa on which the men were sit­ting.

They al­so point­ed to bul­let holes near the win­dows of the home of Phillip-Williams’ 90-year-old grand­moth­er.

“They kill the boys and could have hit the woman there. It was a mir­a­cle noth­ing hap­pen to her,” one woman said.

Phillip-Williams’ moth­er had to be re­peat­ed­ly con­soled by rel­a­tives as she screamed and wailed over her son’s death.

“Every morn­ing he does wake up ear­ly to go to school in Clax­ton Bay. He loved cars, he want­ed to be a me­chan­ic,” she said.

She re­peat­ed­ly said her son was a dili­gent stu­dent and was not in­volved in gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

“The on­ly crime he ever com­mit was smok­ing a lit­tle weed. I talk to him about it but he said it does help with his epilep­tic fits.

“He have it since he was four and the tablets don’t work,” she said.

Fran­cois’ moth­er and rel­a­tives said he was a tal­ent­ed foot­baller who was well loved at the Mor­vant/Laven­tille Sec­ondary School. They claimed that af­ter the shoot­ing the of­fi­cers plant­ed guns on two of the men.

“They see them putting guns in the men hand be­fore they dragged them out like dogs,” one said.

Phillip-Williams’ sis­ter and moth­er al­so claimed po­lice at­tempt­ed to con­ceal ev­i­dence short­ly af­ter the men ar­rived at the hos­pi­tal.

“When we reached to iden­ti­fy him. They was wash­ing out the last one. Can you be­lieve that? I have nev­er heard of that,” his moth­er said.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on whether the TTPS would be is­su­ing an of­fi­cial state­ment on the in­ci­dent, TTPS cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tion man­ag­er Kirk-Jean Bap­tiste said it was un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion and the TTPS would be stick­ing to Grif­fith’s ear­li­er state­ments.

PCA starts own probe

In a press re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty mean­while said it had ini­ti­at­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the killings.

The PCA’s civil­ian in­ves­ti­ga­tors will in­ves­ti­gate and pro­vide a re­port to it. The au­thor­i­ty will then con­sid­er the re­port and de­cide whether it should rec­om­mend pros­e­cu­tion or dis­ci­pli­nary charges.

The PCA called up­on mem­bers of the pub­lic with in­for­ma­tion on the in­ci­dent to con­tact it con­fi­den­tial­ly at 627-4383 or 627-4386 or at in­fo@pca.org.tt.

Au­top­sies are ex­pect­ed to be per­formed on the de­ceased at Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James on Mon­day morn­ing.