Family demands justice after video shows man surrendering before police killing

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has come un­der heavy fire from rel­a­tives de­mand­ing jus­tice for last week’s killing of Joshua Sama­roo, and what they have claimed was the at­tempt­ed ex­e­cu­tion of his com­mon-law wife and US cit­i­zen Ka­ia Sealy.

Dis­miss­ing state­ments by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro hours af­ter the cou­ple had been in­volved in an al­leged shoot-out with of­fi­cers, Sama­roo’s fa­ther, Christo­pher Sama­roo, has vowed not to let the mat­ter rest un­til jus­tice is served.

Yes­ter­day, a record­ing cap­tured by a se­cu­ri­ty cam­era ap­peared to show Sama­roo with his hands up and sur­ren­der­ing to the po­lice, be­fore of­fi­cers opened fire, went vi­ral on so­cial me­dia.

Of­fi­cers orig­i­nal­ly claimed Sama­roo opened fire, prompt­ing their re­sponse.

Around noon on Jan­u­ary 20, of­fi­cers of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion (NED) re­spond­ed to in­for­ma­tion that a high-speed chase, which re­port­ed­ly be­gan in Mal­oney, was in progress and that the oc­cu­pants were al­leged­ly armed.

Of­fi­cers on pa­trol joined the op­er­a­tion and al­leged­ly con­front­ed Sama­roo and Sealy in St Au­gus­tine, which led to the shoot­ing.

Sama­roo was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival at the hos­pi­tal, while Sealy, who was shot in the back, un­der­went surgery and is now paral­ysed from the waist down.

Hours af­ter the re­lease of the video yes­ter­day, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Op­er­a­tions, Suzette Mar­tin is­sued a state­ment as­sur­ing the cou­ple’s rel­a­tives that the TTPS was treat­ing the mat­ter with “ut­most se­ri­ous­ness.”

Sama­roo, 31, was a couri­er with Food Drop and lived with Sealy, 28, a hair­dress­er, at Bam­boo Num­ber 1, Val­sayn.

He was fa­ther to a ten-year-old boy from a pre­vi­ous re­la­tion­ship, while the cou­ple had a five-year-old girl.

Rel­a­tives said Sama­roo’s twin broth­er, Caleb, who is vi­su­al­ly im­paired, has not been eat­ing or sleep­ing since the in­ci­dent.

Fight­ing back tears as he spoke with Sun­day Guardian at the fam­i­ly’s home in Mar­aval yes­ter­day, Sama­roo’s fa­ther de­clared, “It is mur­der to the high­est point, and these po­lice of­fi­cers have to be brought to jus­tice for this. There is no if, and, maybe, but, what­ev­er. They got to be brought to jus­tice be­cause you don’t fire up­on some­body like that with their hands up in the air.” Sama­roo said his son and daugh­ter-in-law should have been giv­en the chance to ex­it the car, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter they had ex­tend­ed their hands up­wards in a sign of sur­ren­der.

He de­scribed his son as “an in­tel­li­gent young man.”

“A fam­i­ly man who was al­ways for his chil­dren, his wife, al­ways work­ing hard, al­ways want to do good, al­ways want­i­ng to make ends meet.”

Con­firm­ing his son had grown up in the church where both his par­ents were pas­tors, Sama­roo said, “My son nev­er smoked. He nev­er drank. He didn’t even eat meat.”

Stand­ing with her fa­ther, Sama­roo’s sis­ter, Chris­tine, added, “He was a great per­son, al­ways full of life, al­ways mak­ing jokes.”

“He was an amaz­ing per­son and did not de­serve to die like this.”

At a loss as to how the fam­i­ly will con­tin­ue fol­low­ing Sama­roo’s death, she said, “His two hands were up. That’s enough rea­son for you to low­er your firearm. And I am call­ing on the au­thor­i­ties, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar...please just in­ter­vene and give us some kind of jus­tice be­cause our broth­er was no crim­i­nal.”

“He was no­body in­volved in gang war, noth­ing like that. He was a nor­mal per­son, work­ing hard for his fam­i­ly, for his two chil­dren. He would check on his dad, he would check on me, he would check on his twin broth­er, and this is re­al­ly just a dev­as­tat­ing time for us, and I just want jus­tice.”

Chris­tine al­so ap­pealed to Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro to sus­pend the of­fi­cers in­volved in the shoot­ing while the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is un­der­way.

Rel­a­tives claimed the same po­lice of­fi­cers who had been in­volved in the shoot­ing were the same ones guard­ing Sealy at the hos­pi­tal. They ex­pressed con­cern over her safe­ty and said, “If any­thing hap­pens to her, they are the ones who did it.”

In­di­cat­ing they in­tend­ed to seek le­gal ad­vice on how to pro­ceed, as no po­lice of­fi­cials had vis­it­ed them since the in­ci­dent, a rel­a­tive said, “When we went to the po­lice sta­tion the next day, they run us like dog.”

“Who will tell us what to do? How to pro­ceed? We don’t even know where his body is. It’s been four days since the shoot­ing, and we are yet to see a po­lice of­fi­cer.”

The fam­i­ly said the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) had been the on­ly agency to have con­tact­ed the fam­i­ly be­tween Tues­day and yes­ter­day.

A state­ment on the TTPS’s Face­book page read, “The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice is aware of the footage now cir­cu­lat­ing and un­der­stands the pub­lic con­cern it has gen­er­at­ed. Any loss of life dur­ing a po­lice op­er­a­tion is a mat­ter we treat with the ut­most se­ri­ous­ness. At this time, the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the in­ci­dent are the sub­ject of an ac­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the po­lice and the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty...The TTPS recog­nis­es the im­por­tance of main­tain­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence and as­sures the pub­lic that any find­ings aris­ing from the in­ves­tiga­tive process will be treat­ed with the se­ri­ous­ness they de­serve, and ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion tak­en where nec­es­sary.”

And the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA), through its Di­rec­tor David West, said, “The Au­thor­i­ty has be­gun an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter. As with all mat­ters of this na­ture, the in­ves­ti­ga­tion will be con­duct­ed in­de­pen­dent­ly and in ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty Act.”

The PCA again stressed that such in­ci­dents in the case of Sama­roo and Sealy un­der­score the im­por­tance of the use of body-worn cam­eras by po­lice of­fi­cers.