Operator in fatal jet ski accident still in police custody

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The sus­pect in the fa­tal jet ski ac­ci­dent, which claimed the life of An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie at the Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park on Wednes­day, re­mains in po­lice cus­tody.

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Rod­hill Kirk said yes­ter­day that the po­lice will leave no stone un­turned in their in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­fore ap­proach­ing the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions for ad­vice on the mat­ter.

“The po­lice would not give up ac­cu­ra­cy for speed. It is a com­plex in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The po­lice are talk­ing to all the po­ten­tial wit­ness­es who were iden­ti­fied,” Kirk told Guardian Me­dia.

An­gel­i­ca was struck by a jet ski while play­ing in the wa­ter with her par­ents and rel­a­tives when a jet ski burst past the rope bar­ri­er and en­tered the zone des­ig­nat­ed for bathing on­ly. The jet ski struck An­gel­i­ca, her par­ents, Arnold and Sal­isha and an un­cle. She died at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

The sus­pect, who fled the scene, was held around 1 am on Thurs­day at his Canaan home af­ter a man­hunt was launched for him.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Kirk said that too of­ten, the onus is put on the po­lice to en­sure rules and reg­u­la­tions are fol­lowed at the ma­rine park.

“There are mul­ti­ple agen­cies op­er­at­ing in that space. Some­times peo­ple leave it up to the po­lice alone. We have been col­lab­o­rat­ing with the oth­er agen­cies and in­stead of be­ing re­ac­tive, we are try­ing to be proac­tive so we don’t have to wait un­til an in­ci­dent oc­curs to treat with it.”

He added, “If every­body does their part, we could man­age this space.”

Sec­re­tary of Health Dr Faith Breb­nor al­so yes­ter­day con­firmed that the au­top­sy on An­gel­i­ca’s will be held on Mon­day. She told Guardian Me­dia the pathol­o­gist will ar­rive on the is­land on Mon­day to clear up all out­stand­ing mat­ters.

The THA is al­so of­fer­ing full sup­port to An­gel­i­ca’s fam­i­ly while they re­main on the is­land.

At­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har al­so yes­ter­day en­dorsed Au­gus­tine’s in­ten­tion to pur­sue le­gal ac­tion against the per­pe­tra­tor and any op­er­a­tors found in breach of safe­ty pro­to­cols at the fa­cil­i­ty go­ing for­ward. He said the THA has a du­ty to pro­tect cit­i­zens and vis­i­tors to the park.

“I have not been able to look at the law on it, but cer­tain­ly where there is a right, there is a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty,” Ra­mad­har said.

“If there is a la­cu­na in the law, I imag­ine with the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al we can fix it very quick­ly, and where there is in­jury to any­one, the fam­i­lies are en­ti­tled to take ac­tion pri­vate­ly against the op­er­a­tors if there is neg­li­gence—and clear­ly there was neg­li­gence in a mat­ter like this.”

Ra­mad­har not­ed that Au­gus­tine act­ed de­ci­sive­ly to shut down the ma­rine park for 24 hours to en­sure com­pli­ance by op­er­a­tors.

“Where there is im­mi­nent dan­ger, and one that caused such a tragedy, I ful­ly sup­port the Chief Sec­re­tary’s po­si­tion to shut this thing down un­til we can fix it. Too of­ten these things oc­cur, they go out of mem­o­ry, and then they re­oc­cur.”

On Wednes­day, Au­gus­tine said he had in­struct­ed Sec­re­tary of Le­gal Af­fairs Adan­na Joseph-Wal­lace to de­ter­mine whether the THA could sue op­er­a­tors for breach­ing the ma­rine park rules.

Au­gus­tine said one of his for­mer clients, a To­bag­on­ian, died dur­ing a jet ski in­ci­dent sev­er­al years ago. He said he be­lieves a na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion needs to be had about ma­rine safe­ty.

“I was at Tyri­co over the week­end, and I saw a fish­ing boat speed­ing di­rect­ly in­to a very crowd­ed area and then com­ing to a quick stop just short of peo­ple, and I said, ‘How dan­ger­ous!’”

He be­lieves tougher leg­is­la­tion and en­force­ment are nec­es­sary.

As the na­tion con­tin­ues to mourn An­gel­i­ca’s pass­ing, Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park re­opened for busi­ness yes­ter­day.

Hun­dreds of vis­i­tors, most­ly from the Marel­la Ex­plor­er cruise ship, which was mak­ing the fi­nal call by a cruise lin­er to the is­land for the 2025/2026 sea­son, flocked to the pop­u­lar beach.

There was a vis­i­ble po­lice pres­ence through­out the day and a strong turnout of life­guards.

Sev­er­al reef boats were seen tak­ing up pas­sen­gers at the Pi­geon Point jet­ty, but there were no jet skis on the wa­ter.

Most of the for­eign­ers were obliv­i­ous to the tragedy that had tak­en place 48 hours ear­li­er and that the beach had been closed the day be­fore.

UK vis­i­tor John said he was told about the in­ci­dent by some­one when he ar­rived at Pi­geon Point.

“I feel very sad for the fam­i­ly,” he said.

Asked if he felt safe, he added, “I feel very safe. If we had not heard the trag­ic news, we would not have thought any­thing. I don’t know if whether on a dif­fer­ent day, it would have been jet skis fly­ing about.”

He said the life­guards were work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly and blow­ing their whis­tles warn­ing bathers if they swam too close to the edge of the bathing-on­ly zone.

“It’s a beau­ti­ful is­land and I’ve been amazed by the scenery. It’s been well or­gan­ised. I was im­pressed by the staff. It’s a re­al­ly good fa­cil­i­ty.”

A Trinida­di­an man from Av­o­cat, who is on va­ca­tion with his fam­i­ly, said the in­ci­dent had put a damper on their trip. He said he was re­lieved not to see jet skis fly­ing across the wa­ter yes­ter­day.

“The in­ci­dent left us with a heavy heart, but we felt safe know­ing the jet skis wouldn’t be around to­day.”

He said a bal­ance be­tween the liveli­hoods of the wa­ter­sports op­er­a­tors and the safe­ty of beach­go­ers must be found.

“This is a beau­ti­ful place and we could all come and en­joy. I think most of the peo­ple, the sen­ti­ment is that they want the rules to be fol­lowed and to feel safe. We don’t want to in­ter­fere with peo­ple’s liveli­hoods. So give them a chance, but en­sure the rules are en­forced.”

An of­fi­cial at Wa­ter­holics, which op­er­ates out­side the Her­itage Park, pro­vid­ing kayaks, jet skis, pad­dle boards and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties, agreed that law­less­ness has crept in­to the in­dus­try. He said neg­li­gence was the on­ly ex­pla­na­tion for what hap­pened on Wednes­day.