Emancipation committee condemns police clash with pannists

The Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ES­CTT) is con­demn­ing the po­lice's han­dling of a con­fronta­tion with mem­bers of Sil­ver Stars Steel Or­ches­tra at TRIBE's band launch, say­ing the re­port­ed use of force against pan­nists was dis­pro­por­tion­ate.

In a state­ment, the com­mit­tee said it was "deeply con­cerned" about the well­be­ing of pan­nists fol­low­ing the al­ter­ca­tion at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in the ear­ly hours of Sun­day.

The ES­CTT ques­tioned why of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly did not ap­proach the event's or­gan­is­ers or band man­age­ment to stop the per­for­mance in­stead of con­fronting the mu­si­cians di­rect­ly.

It al­so ques­tioned why mem­bers of the TTPS An­ti-Gang Unit, if they were the plain-clothes of­fi­cers in­volved, would have been de­ployed against a steel or­ches­tra.

"The se­ries of ac­tions which are re­port­ed to have oc­curred be­tween the mem­bers of Sil­ver Stars Steel Or­ches­tra and mem­bers of the TTPS at the end of Tribe Band Launch... is de­plorable and has not oc­curred in Trinidad and To­ba­go since the vi­o­lent days of the 1960's," the com­mit­tee said.

The group said it stood in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Sil­ver Stars and Pan Trin­ba­go, adding that the steel­pan, Trinidad and To­ba­go's na­tion­al in­stru­ment, de­served re­spect be­cause of its his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance.

"We once again call on the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, in this racial­ly charged so­ci­ety, as an arm of the state, to please let cool­er heads pre­vail and take the lev­el of po­lice use of force against non-vi­o­lent civil­ians down," the state­ment said.

The com­ments come af­ter five Sil­ver Stars play­ers were ar­rest­ed fol­low­ing a con­fronta­tion with po­lice af­ter TRIBE's band launch.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands plain-clothes of­fi­cers ap­proached the band short­ly af­ter 2 am and in­struct­ed them to stop play­ing. The sit­u­a­tion re­port­ed­ly es­ca­lat­ed when one of­fi­cer al­leged­ly grabbed drum­sticks from a play­er and threw down a drum, spark­ing a scuf­fle. Videos shared on so­cial me­dia ap­peared to show pans and stands scat­tered across the North Stand.

The five play­ers, Je­lani Ciel­to, Xavier Vil­lafana, Aquila Pereira, An­del Ham­let and Gle­nanne De Sil­va, have since been charged with ob­scene lan­guage, dis­or­der­ly be­hav­iour and re­sist­ing ar­rest. Pereira was al­so charged with as­sault­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer.

Po­lice said the or­gan­is­ers' li­cence re­quired mu­sic to end at 2 am and that af­ter the DJ stopped play­ing, the steel or­ches­tra con­tin­ued per­form­ing. The TTPS al­leged some play­ers be­came con­fronta­tion­al and that an of­fi­cer was as­sault­ed while car­ry­ing out a law­ful ar­rest. The in­jured of­fi­cer re­ceived treat­ment at the Port of Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal be­fore be­ing dis­charged.

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore has ar­gued the in­ci­dent could have been avoid­ed if po­lice had dealt with the or­gan­is­ers in­stead of the mu­si­cians, say­ing the play­ers were hired to per­form and may not have known the agreed fin­ish­ing time.

She al­so crit­i­cised the treat­ment of the steel­pan, say­ing at least one in­stru­ment was dam­aged and would re­quire cost­ly re­tun­ing.

Sil­ver Stars man­age­ment has de­nied its mem­bers as­sault­ed po­lice.

In a so­cial me­dia state­ment, the band said its play­ers "did not, at any point, aggress or put hands on any­one, nor were we de­fi­ant when asked to stop play­ing."

The band de­scribed its mem­bers as pro­fes­sion­al mu­si­cians and steel­pan am­bas­sadors, adding it hoped the in­ci­dent would lead to greater re­spect for the na­tion­al in­stru­ment and those who per­form it.