PM slams ‘sick and evil’ support for gang unity at Sealy-Samaroo protest

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has con­demned calls for crim­i­nal gangs to unite amid on­go­ing protests sur­round­ing the Joshua Sama­roo-Ka­ia Sealy case, de­scrib­ing sup­port for such ap­peals as “sick and evil” and pledg­ing that her Gov­ern­ment will stand firm­ly be­hind law en­force­ment and law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

In a state­ment post­ed on X yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so showed a clip of two men, with one claim­ing there was a truce among 6, 7, 8 and 9 gangs as well as Ras­ta City and Mus­lim gangs, as they stood in Port-of-Spain af­ter a move to protest in front of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions’ of­fice was quashed by po­lice on Wednes­day. The clip of the men was im­me­di­ate­ly fol­lowed by Guardian Me­dia’s in­ter­view with ACP Richard Smith, who promised a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach from the po­lice to gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

In her post, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused sec­tions of the Op­po­si­tion, union lead­ers, en­ter­tain­ers and ac­tivists of align­ing them­selves with dan­ger­ous rhetoric that emerged dur­ing re­cent demon­stra­tions out­side the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

“ON­LY SICK AND EVIL PEO­PLE WOULD SUP­PORT CALLS FOR VI­O­LENT GANGS TO UNITE TO AT­TACK LAW EN­FORCE­MENT OF­FI­CERS AND LAW-ABID­ING CIT­I­ZENS,” the Prime Min­is­ter wrote.

Her com­ments came days af­ter protests were staged out­side the DPP’s of­fice fol­low­ing the de­ci­sion to charge Ka­ia Sealy with manslaugh­ter and oth­er of­fences aris­ing out of the Jan­u­ary 20 po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing, which left her paral­ysed and re­sult­ed in the death of her com­mon-law hus­band, Joshua Sama­roo.

The demon­stra­tions formed part of the “19 Bul­lets, 19 Protests” cam­paign or­gan­ised by Sealy’s friend Alyssa Phillip.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­demned the calls for gang uni­ty.

“It is ap­palling to all law-abid­ing cit­i­zens that the PNM, some union lead­ers, en­ter­tain­ers, pub­lic­i­ty farm­ers, and po­lit­i­cal and race grifters are sup­port­ing pro­test­ers who are call­ing for the uni­fi­ca­tion of vi­o­lent crim­i­nal gangs to at­tack and kill law en­force­ment of­fi­cers,” she wrote.

Re­fer­ring specif­i­cal­ly to a protest out­side the DPP’s of­fice, Per­sad-Bisses­sar wrote: “This sick and evil call for gangs to uni­fy to at­tack law en­force­ment oc­curred dur­ing the protest in front of the DPP’s of­fice this past week, where pro­test­ers at­tempt­ed to in­tim­i­date pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al of­fi­cials at work.”

She added, “Thank God the TTPS was present to se­cure the pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al staff at work.”

Her re­marks came one day af­ter DPP Roger Gas­pard SC is­sued a pub­lic cau­tion urg­ing re­straint in com­men­tary sur­round­ing the Sama­roo-Sealy mat­ter, warn­ing that ex­ten­sive pub­lic dis­cus­sion and me­dia cov­er­age could prej­u­dice on­go­ing ju­di­cial pro­ceed­ings.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so ques­tioned what she de­scribed as se­lec­tive out­rage over gang vi­o­lence, not­ing the dev­as­tat­ing im­pact gangs have had on com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“This coun­try has wit­nessed over ten thou­sand mur­ders in the last twen­ty-five years. When our cit­i­zens are slaugh­tered in gang wars across the coun­try by vi­o­lent crim­i­nals, there is no out­rage,” she wrote.

She added: “En­tire com­mu­ni­ties can’t even walk their streets safe­ly be­cause they have been ter­rorised and bled out by gangs.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar fur­ther chal­lenged those sup­port­ing the demon­stra­tions, ask­ing: “Where are the mass demon­stra­tions for them, where is the em­pa­thy and love for them? Where are the cam­paigns and protests by the grifters de­mand­ing jus­tice for vic­tims caught in gang war­fare?”

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so called on those she named in her state­ment to re­con­sid­er their po­si­tions.

“I en­cour­age the PNM, the union lead­ers, en­ter­tain­ers, pub­lic­i­ty farm­ers, and po­lit­i­cal and race grifters to en­gage in self-re­flec­tion,” she wrote.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “I promise law-abid­ing cit­i­zens that your Gov­ern­ment and law en­force­ment will stand firm­ly in your de­fence and will work to en­sure your safe­ty.”