Patience Hill family disputes police version of fatal shooting

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The fam­i­ly of a 20-year-old Pa­tience Hill, To­ba­go man who was shot and killed by po­lice, are de­mand­ing greater ac­count­abil­i­ty from of­fi­cers, call­ing for manda­to­ry body cam­eras as they re­ject the po­lice ac­count of the fa­tal shoot­ing.

Hasani Bobb was killed on Wednes­day night dur­ing a po­lice op­er­a­tion, but his rel­a­tives in­sist he would nev­er have point­ed a gun at of­fi­cers and are ques­tion­ing the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing his death.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Rod­hill Kirk said Bobb was one of two sus­pects want­ed by po­lice fol­low­ing a rob­bery at Pi­geon Point last week, in which a po­lice­man’s firearm was stolen.

Bobb was dri­ving a Nis­san Ti­i­da in Pa­tience Hill around 11.45 pm on Wednes­day when po­lice, act­ing on in­tel­li­gence, in­ter­cept­ed the ve­hi­cle. Po­lice said Bobb point­ed a gun at of­fi­cers and ig­nored com­mands to drop the weapon. Of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly be­came fear­ful for their lives and shot the sus­pect mul­ti­ple times.

He was tak­en to the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he suc­cumbed to his in­juries.

Po­lice con­firmed two firearms—in­clud­ing the po­lice of­fi­cer’s stolen weapon—were re­cov­ered at the scene.

Kirk has ad­vised the sec­ond sus­pect in the rob­bery to sur­ren­der as soon as pos­si­ble.

“Turn your­self in, be­cause we know who you are,” he said.

He warned would-be crim­i­nals that his of­fi­cers would not be con­don­ing vi­o­lence against civil­ians or po­lice.

But Bobb’s moth­er, Kamme­sia Stew­art, who is preg­nant, main­tains that her son would nev­er point a gun at po­lice.

She said he was not a trou­ble­mak­er and his on­ly in­frac­tion with the law was dri­ving with­out a valid li­cence.

“My son would take he lock up. He not point­ing no gun at no po­lice,” she said.

“Them have to bury my son. I have no mon­ey to bury him. Them kill him, them have to bury him.”

Bobb’s aunt, Kar­resia Wheel­er, said the fam­i­ly has been hear­ing ru­mours that the po­lice had placed a tar­get on his back.

“It not adding up, it not mak­ing sense... Al­lyuh shoot him and kill him with in­tent. Every­body is talk­ing and say­ing that the po­lice say that any­time they get him they would kill him,” she said.

Wheel­er has ad­mon­ished po­lice for not wear­ing body cam­eras con­sis­tent­ly while in the field.

“When you say that this per­son do some­thing, we not sure. Is bet­ter they wear the cam­era to show that this take place. In word of mouth, we don’t know.”

Rel­a­tives said they in­tend to file a re­port to the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty.

The in­ci­dent was To­ba­go’s third po­lice-in­volved killing for 2026.

On Oc­to­ber 8, po­lice shot and killed two men in a Toy­ota Aqua fol­low­ing a shootout in Buc­coo.

The fa­ther of one of the de­ceased men has al­so ac­cused the po­lice of mur­der, al­so in­sist­ing his son did not have a gun.