Seven in custody as search for missing Angelo widens

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Sev­en peo­ple, in­clud­ing four men and three women, are now in po­lice cus­tody in To­ba­go as po­lice seek an­swers on the dis­ap­pear­ance of two-year-old An­ge­lo To­bias-Plaza.

The Good­wood home of one of the sus­pects was raid­ed yes­ter­day as cops searched for clues to lo­cate the tod­dler.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, po­lice said its Cy­ber Unit has been tasked with analysing and gath­er­ing ev­i­dence from all elec­tron­ic de­vices seized.

An­ge­lo was re­port­ed miss­ing from his Cam­bridge Trace, Good­wood home around 7.30 pm on May 11, trig­ger­ing a mul­ti-agency re­sponse com­pris­ing the Spe­cial Vic­tims De­part­ment, To­ba­go Di­vi­sion Gang Unit, Homi­cide Bu­reau, Task Force, the Ca­nine Unit and Crim­i­nal Records Of­fice, with as­sis­tance from the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency and the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team.

For the third con­sec­u­tive day, the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team yes­ter­day for­aged through the Stud­ley Park land­fill in Mt St George for the child’s body.

An­oth­er team, with tech­ni­cal sup­port from the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (TEMA), fo­cused their at­ten­tion on Pig Farm Road in Golds­bor­ough and Dam Road.

An­ge­lo’s moth­er Kali­fah To­bias and her part­ner Shan­non Miller were de­tained by po­lice on Fri­day af­ter­noon at their Good­wood home.

Four oth­er per­sons of in­ter­est were de­tained be­tween Sun­day night and Mon­day, while an­oth­er sus­pect was held yes­ter­day.

Asked whether any charges are loom­ing, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Rod­hill Kirk told Guardian Me­dia, “Charges are not in con­tem­pla­tion at this time. We are still in the in­ves­tiga­tive process. Notwith­stand­ing 48 hours have passed, as long as the po­lice are ac­tive­ly pur­su­ing all in­for­ma­tion and leads, I think they are jus­ti­fied to have peo­ple de­tained.”

He stressed that the po­lice are not act­ing out­side the law and will re­spect the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of those held for ques­tion­ing.

Asked whether the sus­pects are co op­er­at­ing, Kirk said, “There are some things I would not dis­close be­cause of the sen­si­tive na­ture of this in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

The dis­ap­pear­ance of the child has evoked strong emo­tions from the na­tion with cries for jus­tice for An­ge­lo.

‘Be re­spon­si­ble on so­cial me­dia’

How­ev­er, Kirk warned the pub­lic about mak­ing in­flam­ma­to­ry state­ments on so­cial me­dia.

He said, “I want to ask peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly those on the so­cial me­dia plat­forms, to be re­spon­si­ble. I am see­ing in­for­ma­tion where they are even at­tack­ing some of the po­lice of­fi­cers in­volved in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, mak­ing defam­a­to­ry re­marks. I want peo­ple to be re­spon­si­ble.”

He added, “There are some peo­ple tak­ing it up­on them­selves to be spread­ing false nar­ra­tives and false in­fo in the pub­lic do­main. Please de­sist from do­ing so. That tends to sen­sa­tion­alise is­sues in the pub­lic do­main, cre­at­ing pan­ic and dis­tress to the pub­lic and al­so mem­bers of the fam­i­ly.”

He urged the pub­lic to let the po­lice do their job and stop in­ter­fer­ing.

“Every­body turn in­ves­ti­ga­tor at this point in time. We do ap­pre­ci­ate that per­sons try­ing to get to the bot­tom of it, but they must be re­spon­si­ble.”

Mean­while, Hunters Search and Res­cue Team cap­tain Val­lence Ramb­harat said his group has been in To­ba­go for a full week.

He said the group had thought An­ge­lo would have been found by now, but he stressed they will com­plete their search­es be­fore the Trinida­di­an mem­bers re­turn home.

“We’ve been mov­ing through var­i­ous ar­eas and keep­ing to our plans in terms of our field op­er­a­tions. It is very im­por­tant we con­tin­ue search­ing for ba­by An­ge­lo.”

Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty: Un­prece­dent­ed abuse in T&T

Mean­while, in a me­dia re­lease, the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty said the na­tion’s chil­dren con­tin­ue to face “un­prece­dent­ed lev­els of abuse at the hands of those en­trust­ed with their care.”

It called on cit­i­zens to play an ac­tive role in pro­tect­ing vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren.

On Mon­day, the Au­thor­i­ty marked its 11th an­niver­sary since leg­is­la­tion was passed for it to pro­vide care, pro­tec­tion and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion to chil­dren and their fam­i­lies.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion said since be­com­ing op­er­a­tional, it has re­ceived over 5,400 re­ports of abuse an­nu­al­ly. It said the high­est num­ber of re­ports re­late to ne­glect, fol­lowed by sex­u­al abuse, phys­i­cal abuse and emo­tion­al abuse.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion said there is an ur­gent need for col­lec­tive na­tion­al ac­tion to pro­tect chil­dren and en­sure that abuse is re­port­ed prompt­ly at 996 or the po­lice at 999.

Time­line

May 10 - An­ge­lo spot­ted in pub­lic by mul­ti­ple vil­lagers

May 11 - An­ge­lo re­port­ed miss­ing at 7.30 pm; po­lice and vil­lagers search Cam­bridge Trace and en­vi­rons

May 12 - Labour­er “sights” An­ge­lo’s body in sea in Good­wood; TEMA drones search the sea, divers search un­der­wa­ter

May 13 - Sol­diers, Coast Guard of­fi­cers, po­lice search coast­line and in­te­ri­or, TEMA drones search the sea

May 14 - Hunters Search and Res­cue Team joins op­er­a­tions; pri­vate boat search­es the sea

May 15 - An­ge­lo’s bi­o­log­i­cal fa­ther and grand­moth­er vis­it Good­wood, cops ar­rest An­ge­lo’s moth­er and her part­ner

May 16 - Search for An­ge­lo shifts sole­ly to land

May 17 - Cops ar­rest more sus­pects, Stud­ley Park land­fill searched

May 18 - More sus­pects ar­rest­ed, land­fill searched

May 19 - One per­son de­tained, sus­pect’s home raid­ed, Cy­ber Unit in­volved. Search­es at land­fill, Dam Road and Pig Farm Road, Golds­bor­ough