Opposition shocked at charges against Kaia

KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­[email protected]

The star­tling twist to the Joshua Sama­roo probe, which re­sult­ed in his girl­friend Ka­ia Sealy fac­ing charges of manslaugh­ter and shoot­ing with in­tent, has sent shock­waves among Op­po­si­tion par­lia­men­tar­i­ans.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is­sued a me­dia re­lease on the is­sue yes­ter­day, call­ing the lat­est de­vel­op­ment deeply un­set­tling.

Beck­les said the pub­lic has been left with more ques­tions than an­swers. She be­lieves this proves the ur­gent need for the Gov­ern­ment to pro­tect cit­i­zens’ rights by strength­en­ing the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA).

Beck­les said, “While the na­tion can place trust in the in­de­pen­dence of the Of­fice of the DPP, so­ci­ety is now con­front­ed with more ques­tions than an­swers re­gard­ing the ra­tio­nale be­hind this sud­den de­vel­op­ment. These con­cerns are height­ened giv­en the num­ber of po­lice shoot­ings that have oc­curred dur­ing what has be­come a nev­er end­ing State of Emer­gency, and es­pe­cial­ly be­cause the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty is ac­tive­ly con­duct­ing its own in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to these po­lice killings.”

In a me­dia re­lease on Thurs­day, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) said Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion Roger Gas­pard had giv­en them in­struc­tions to charge Sealy with three counts of shoot­ing with in­tent to cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm to­wards po­lice of­fi­cers and manslaugh­ter in re­la­tion to Sama­roo’s killing.

Sama­roo was killed on Jan­u­ary 20 in St Au­gus­tine, dur­ing an al­leged ex­change of gun­fire with po­lice of­fi­cers fol­low­ing a high-speed car chase which had be­gun in Mal­oney. Sealy was al­so shot in the in­ci­dent and has since been paral­ysed due to the in­juries sus­tained then.

Yes­ter­day, Beck­les added, “Mind­ful of the need to avoid un­nec­es­sary pub­lic com­men­tary dur­ing an on­go­ing crim­i­nal process, we are equal­ly aware that the State must safe­guard the rights of cit­i­zens, many of whom have been stunned and are call­ing for clar­i­ty on the out­come and di­rec­tion of the Sama­roo in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“In these cir­cum­stances, liv­ing un­der a per­pet­u­al State of Emer­gency and wit­ness­ing the deeply un­set­tling de­vel­op­ments in the Sama­roo mat­ter, the Op­po­si­tion holds the view that it is im­per­a­tive for the Gov­ern­ment to move swift­ly to strength­en the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty through leg­isla­tive re­form, grant­i­ng it broad­er pow­ers sim­i­lar to the Ja­maican coun­ter­part IN­DE­COM. The rights and priv­i­leges of cit­i­zens must be pro­tect­ed and guar­an­teed.”

Beck­les al­so slammed the Gov­ern­ment for not re­veal­ing if the lat­est State of Emer­gency will be ex­tend­ed and for not pub­licly ad­dress­ing oth­er con­tro­ver­sial is­sues, in­clud­ing Land­mark TT and the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC).

Al­so is­su­ing a me­dia re­lease on the Sama­roo case yes­ter­day, for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Stu­art Young ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of us­ing dis­trac­tion tac­tics to avoid ad­dress­ing press­ing mat­ters, in­clud­ing the Sama­roo in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Nu­trien’s clo­sure and Land­mark TT.

Young said, “We must not al­low this Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar Gov­ern­ment to dis­tract us from the hard re­al­i­ties that are de­stroy­ing our na­tion… now charges be­ing laid against the paral­ysed girl­friend of a young man who died af­ter be­ing shot by po­lice of­fi­cers in a sit­u­a­tion where there are many ques­tions that re­main unan­swered.”

For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les al­so be­lieves pub­lic trust in the po­lice ser­vice is now lost.

Speak­ing out­side Par­lia­ment, Gon­za­les said, “Pub­lic con­fi­dence in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and in­sti­tu­tions that were placed to pro­tect the cit­i­zens are at an all-time low. I can­not re­call con­fi­dence in the pub­lic ser­vice be­ing this low in the his­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

He said Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has a lot of work to do.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne al­so called on the TTPS to be more trans­par­ent with the pub­lic.

Browne said, “It be­hoves them to pro­vide more in­for­ma­tion, some more de­tails, some more ev­i­dence that could as­sist the pub­lic in di­gest­ing this very star­tling con­clu­sion, which did not fit with any­thing that was said be­fore and which ties in to a gen­er­al sus­pi­cion of the Gov­ern­ment.”

Echo­ing sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments yes­ter­day, PNM deputy po­lit­i­cal leader San­jiv Bood­hu said, “I think I join every­body else with ex­press­ing some shock. I did look at the press con­fer­ence of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice yes­ter­day (Thurs­day). It was a pret­ty long press con­fer­ence, and at no time did I sus­pect that that would have been the turn of events... If the Gov­ern­ment, in­clud­ing the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, sim­ply is straight­for­ward with the peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go, they’re go­ing to have a lot eas­i­er time.”

With pres­sure from the Op­po­si­tion for an­swers sur­round­ing the po­lice shoot­ing, Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to get Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der to ad­dress the is­sue, but he re­fused.

When asked if he would re­spond to crit­i­cism that the pub­lic trust in the po­lice had been fur­ther erod­ed, he replied, “Nah.”

When Guardian Me­dia pressed for more an­swers, he re­fused and head­ed in­to the House.