Days be­fore Trinidad and To­ba­go cel­e­brat­ed its 62nd an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced the re­moval of Christo­pher Colum­bus’ ships from the Coat of Arms.

The Ni­na, the Pin­ta, and the San­ta Maria which com­mem­o­rat­ed Colum­bus’ ar­rival in 1498 have been part of the de­sign since 1962 but will be re­placed by this coun­try’s na­tion­al in­stru­ment, the steel­pan.

“We are go­ing to re­place Colum­bus’s three ships—the Ni­na, the Pin­ta, and the San­ta Maria—with the steel­pan ... And for lo­gis­ti­cal pur­pos­es, that will take place over a six-month pe­ri­od, al­low­ing us to con­sume the sta­tion­ary and oth­er things we have in place and be re­placed by our new in­ten­tion,” the Prime Min­is­ter said at the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s Spe­cial Con­ven­tion.

Lo­cal de­sign­er/jew­eller Gillian Bish­op was giv­en the as­sign­ment to draft a new de­sign for the Coat of Arms. She said she was hum­bled by the op­por­tu­ni­ty even though she has de­signed many na­tion­al awards in­clud­ing T&T’s high­est ho­n­our, the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic, African Eman­ci­pa­tion mon­u­ments like Arise, which sits out­side the Trea­sury in the cap­i­tal, and lo­cal jew­ellery.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar warned that the promise to re­move the ships from the Coat of Arms need­ed to be thought through as it could ig­nite racial ten­sions in this coun­try.

Days lat­er, the Tas­sa As­so­ci­a­tion joined the de­bate and de­scribed the tas­sa drum as more of a lo­cal in­stru­ment than the steel­pan.

Ca­lyp­son­ian and cul­tur­al his­to­ri­an Dr Hol­lis Liv­er­pool, al­so known as Chalk­dust agreed with the pro­posed change.

So did his­to­ri­an Brid­get Br­ere­ton, so­ca icon Machel Mon­tano, and at­tor­ney Mar­tin George.

While some mem­bers of so­ci­ety wor­ried about the cost, the Prime Min­is­ter im­me­di­ate­ly shut those con­cerns down, say­ing it would not be hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars.

Fa­ther and daugh­ter

killed in Moru­ga

News of the mur­ders of a Moru­ga fa­ther and his five-year-old daugh­ter rocked the coun­try on Au­gust 21. Busi­ness­man En­ri­co Guer­ra and his daugh­ter Ani­ka were shot dead by a masked gun­man who fired 17 bul­lets at En­ri­co’s Cor­ner Mart at Poui Trace, St Mary’s Vil­lage, Moru­ga. Ani­ka, a preschool­er, was shot mul­ti­ple times on the left side of her face, her low­er back, and her arm. Po­lice be­lieve the bul­lets were meant for her fa­ther, who had re­fused to ac­cede to cer­tain de­mands. He died on the scene.

The child suc­cumbed to her in­juries at the Princes Town Hos­pi­tal. They were both laid to rest one week lat­er on Au­gust 28. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley called the killing the worst kind of “bar­barism”.

Movi­eTowne show­down

Movi­eTowne was forced to sus­pend some of its op­er­a­tions on Au­gust 23, af­ter bailiffs took con­trol of its of­fice and ban­quet hall and moved to levy on them to re­cov­er more than $10 mil­lion in rent owed to the Port-of-Spain In­fra­struc­ture Com­pa­ny (POS­IN­CO).

The en­ter­tain­ment are­na was re­port­ed to be ow­ing POS­IN­CO a to­tal of $10,904,121.23 in ar­rears, which was ac­crued be­tween 2021 to Au­gust.

In a state­ment, Movi­eTowne, owned by busi­ness­man Derek Chin, said the move was “il­le­gal” and “high-hand­ed.” It added that it at­tempt­ed to pay the out­stand­ing ar­rears via cheque but was re­fused and had to head to court to rec­ti­fy the mat­ter.

In school

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly five years af­ter thou­sands of Venezue­lan mi­grants reg­is­tered to live and work in this coun­try, some of their chil­dren fi­nal­ly got the op­por­tu­ni­ty to at­tend school. The Gov­ern­ment se­lect­ed 23 chil­dren to at­tend Ro­man Catholic schools across the coun­try.

In a cer­e­mo­ny at the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry on Au­gust 19, the 23 mi­grant chil­dren, or 35 per cent of those who reg­is­tered with the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, re­ceived stu­dent as­sign­ment let­ters.

Chief Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer Dr Pe­ter Smith said 187 par­ents ap­plied but on­ly 111 were suc­cess­ful as they en­coun­tered chal­lenges such as miss­ing doc­u­ments, ex­pired per­mits, and low lev­els of lit­er­a­cy among par­ents, which re­sult­ed in ex­tend­ed pe­ri­ods for in­ter­views dur­ing the process.

Po­lice shoot­ings

On Au­gust 12, two teenagers and a 21-year-old moth­er of one were killed in a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing on the Ca­roni Sa­van­nah Road. The fa­tal con­fronta­tion oc­curred around 4.40 am near the Ca­roni Cre­ma­tion site.

Po­lice said they re­ceived a re­port of a car with oc­cu­pants car­ry­ing guns and sub­se­quent­ly came up­on a white Nis­san Almera. They or­dered the dri­ver of the car to stop but the dri­ver rammed the po­lice ve­hi­cle and two gun­shots were heard be­fore po­lice re­turned fire, hit­ting the three oc­cu­pants.

The trio was pro­nounced dead at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex around 5.14 am. They were iden­ti­fied as Amir “Pa” Bis­soon, 16, Jaya Jo­di Barath, 21, both of Sama­roo Lane, Dook­iesingh Street Ex­ten­sion, St Au­gus­tine, and Joseph Ramjit of Kalpoo Street, Spring Vil­lage.

Po­lice claim they were af­fil­i­at­ed with the Re­sis­tance Gang.

Two days lat­er, po­lice killed six ban­dits in Freeport. They have been iden­ti­fied as Jo­van Si­mon, 31, Nicholas Cae­sar; Saleem John, 19, Kevon John, 23, Isa­iah Olivierre, 21, and a 16-year-old girl from La Ro­main.

Po­lice said the six had rent­ed a house in the area and were car­ry­ing out a spate of rob­beries.

Scot­land ap­point­ed

Ex­act­ly one week af­ter Kei­th Scot­land was ap­point­ed as Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty on Ju­ly 26, he met with the ex­ec­u­tive of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in Au­gust. He said the ma­jor is­sue dis­cussed was the re­duc­tion of crime.

Lat­er in the month, Scot­land, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, and oth­er po­lice of­fi­cials toured To­ba­go as the mur­der toll con­tin­ued to climb.

Days be­fore the min­is­ter’s vis­it, a Ch­agua­nas woman was killed af­ter gun­men sprayed bul­lets at her while she was at Lam­my Road, Ar­gyle.

Po­lice said Vic­to­ria Aman­da Guer­ra, 32, al­so known as Dol­ly Boss, died at the Rox­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal soon af­ter the at­tack.

On Au­gust 10, Dr Ayana Par­risi­enne-James, 35, was in­jured by a stray bul­let as she shield­ed her one-year-old daugh­ter as they wait­ed in their car when gun­men be­gan shoot­ing in Ar­gyle.

Stay­ing with To­ba­go, re­sis­tance among To­bag­o­ni­ans over joint an­ti-crime ex­er­cis­es on the is­land has re­sult­ed in death threats against Li­cens­ing of­fi­cials.

This ig­nit­ed a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion. In one video, a man lat­er iden­ti­fied as Har­ry Her­cules lit can­dles and placed red ixo­ras (flow­ers) around an an­i­mal head car­cass, while say­ing, “Kill them.”

In an­oth­er video, a group of men lift­ed the car­cass dur­ing an ap­par­ent rit­u­al and shout­ed “obeah” at Li­cens­ing of­fi­cers who were con­duct­ing an ex­er­cise.

Guardian Me­dia met up with Her­cules, who claimed to be an Obeah man, in Rox­bor­ough. He said peo­ple in To­ba­go East were ready to sum­mon their an­ces­tors to fight.

Ac­ci­dents

The sol­dier who was charged with caus­ing the death of Kiss de­liv­ery dri­ver Neil Bal­lai on March 28 was grant­ed bail for $150,000. Jalani Mapp, of Er­i­ca Street, Laven­tille, was charged with five of­fences in Ju­ly.

Bal­lai, 55, of Ec­cles Trace, Spring Vil­lage, Val­sayn, was dri­ving the com­pa­ny’s Isuzu truck when he was rear-end­ed by a black Hyundai Ion­iq which sped off. He died at the scene.

And a 57-year-old woman was crushed by a truck on Au­gust 30, at Mon­trose Junc­tion in Ch­agua­nas. Eliz­a­beth In­dra Dass had just vis­it­ed the near­by First Cit­i­zens Bank to do a trans­ac­tion. She was at­tempt­ing to cross when she was run over by a truck owned by SNM Trans­port, of Long­denville.

Dead­ly plunge

Two friends fell to their deaths when the pick-up they were trav­el­ling in ran off the high­way and plunged in­to the Cipero Riv­er in San Fer­nan­do. The Hunters’ Search and Res­cue (HSR) team dis­cov­ered the bod­ies of busi­ness­man Sachin Teeluck­d­har­ry, of Clarke Road, Pe­nal, and Ryan Ram­nanan, of Tul­sa Trace, San Fran­cique. Both men were al­ready dead.

Rel­a­tives of the late 27-year-olds called for the ca­ble bar­ri­ers to be fixed.

Man crushed

An Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion em­ploy­ee as­sist­ing in prepa­ra­tions for Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions was crushed when a piece of heavy con­struc­tion equip­ment—a steam­roller—fell and rolled over him.

Po­lice said Ald­wyn Kur­ton, a dri­ver with the cor­po­ra­tion, was fix­ing the steam­roller at the Ari­ma Velo­drome when the tragedy oc­curred.

Kur­ton was an Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion em­ploy­ee for al­most 20 years.

Dengue cas­es

With 825 in­fect­ed and eight deaths by Au­gust 18, Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said T&T was fac­ing an “out­break sit­u­a­tion”.

“We have had more cas­es this year than the pre­vi­ous years since 2017 to now. The last time we had these num­bers would have been high­er than 2014 and 2017, so we are in an out­break sit­u­a­tion, but it is dif­fi­cult to project and pre­dict where it is go­ing to go,” he said. He said the Gov­ern­ment was do­ing a lot and en­cour­ag­ing peo­ple to do their part to pre­vent the spread of the Aedes ae­gyp­ti mos­qui­to.

WASA gets a CEO

The Wa­ter and Sewage Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) con­firmed Kei­throy Hal­l­i­day as its chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer (CEO).

The St Kitts-born Hal­l­i­day has served as the act­ing CEO of the Bar­ba­dos Wa­ter Au­thor­i­ty (BWA) for the past sev­en years and he has an­nounced his res­ig­na­tion.

He as­sumed his po­si­tion on De­cem­ber 1.

New home

The Gov­ern­ment iden­ti­fied the site of the aban­doned Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, post of­fice as the head­quar­ters for Pan Trin­ba­go. The world gov­ern­ing body for steel­pan will share its new $120 mil­lion home with the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture, and the Arts, Tourism Trinidad Lim­it­ed, and the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion.

Ko­mal was in Venezuela

Weeks af­ter he went miss­ing on Ju­ly 19, rel­a­tives of Ch­agua­nas con­sul­tant Ko­mal Ma­haraj claimed he was kid­napped, tak­en to Venezuela, and on­ly re­leased af­ter they paid a ran­som. But his sto­ry—be­ing snatched in Price Plaza, tak­en to Venezuela, and then re­turned home again af­ter a ran­som was paid—was the cause of much scep­ti­cism and scruti­ny.

This forced the kid­nap vic­tim’s rel­a­tives to share a state­ment on so­cial me­dia con­firm­ing he was held cap­tive in Venezuela. The An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit said Ma­haraj’s case re­mains ac­tive.

EBC up­sets Row­ley

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley slammed the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) for a plan to ask re­turn­ing of­fi­cers to de­clare their po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance to qual­i­fy for these po­si­tions in fu­ture elec­tions. This re­ac­tion came af­ter EBC chair­man Mark Ramk­er­rysingh stat­ed that Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cers would be asked to de­clare their “par­ty al­le­giance and mem­ber­ship” be­fore work­ing in polling sta­tions. Tak­ing to his Face­book page, Row­ley said, “The po­si­tion of the EBC to ques­tion EBC staff about their vote is ‘ab­solute­ly un­ac­cept­able’.”

His­to­ry lost

The his­toric Siegert House at 12 Vic­to­ria Av­enue in Port-of-Spain was de­mol­ished. The deed for the Vic­to­ria Av­enue struc­ture was reg­is­tered in 1899 by Car­los, Al­fre­do, and Luis Siegert, the sons of Dr Jo­hann Siegert, the founder of An­gos­tu­ra aro­mat­ic bit­ters.