ACP warns gangs following unity call to fight TTPS

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Richard Smith says a call for war­ring gangs to unite to fight the po­lice will be met with the full force of the law.

Re­spond­ing yes­ter­day to a video that was cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia, in which calls were re­port­ed­ly made by two al­leged af­fil­i­ates of the Mus­lim and Ras­ta City gangs to make a truce and unite to re­tal­i­ate against the po­lice, Smith said, “We are not tak­ing that light­ly.”

He cau­tioned, “I want to ad­vise per­sons who are or­gan­is­ing these meet­ings or protests, or what­ev­er they call it, to be care­ful who you align your­selves with. It could be a dan­ger­ous union. What you sow is what you may reap lat­er on.”

The video was made dur­ing a demon­stra­tion staged by fam­i­ly and friends of Joshua Sama­roo and Ka­ia Sealy near the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions in Port-of-Spain on Wednes­day. The or­gan­is­er of that protest, Alyssa Phillip, her moth­er and a so­cial me­dia ac­tivist were ar­rest­ed as that event was brought to a pre­ma­ture end by the TTPS.

In the video, the two in­di­vid­u­als are seen mak­ing a call to the Sixx, Sev­en, Eight and Nine gangs to stop fight­ing each oth­er and unite to fight the po­lice.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Smith urged peo­ple to re­alise that these “so-called gang mem­bers” could have “ul­te­ri­or mo­tives.”

“It is not a sim­ple mar­riage as that, where they sim­ply sup­port you,” he said.

Al­though he ac­knowl­edged it may be in­no­cent in some in­stances, Smith said in oth­er cir­cum­stances, “it could be quite dan­ger­ous.”

Re­fer­ring to yes­ter­day’s silent protest in Long Cir­cu­lar, St James, Smith said for some gang mem­bers “who did not get the truce memo, they could turn up and it would take on­ly one wrong move to erupt in­to may­hem, prov­ing dan­ger­ous for those present.”

Smith urged, “Be care­ful in align­ing your­self with these gangs and gang mem­bers, as it could be quite detri­men­tal to you and your cause.”

Asked if the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James was added to the sched­ule of pro­hib­it­ed build­ings where per­sons were not al­lowed to gath­er, af­ter pro­test­ers were yes­ter­day told they could not con­gre­gate out­side the fa­cil­i­ty for a demon­stra­tion, Smith ex­plained why the show of force by the po­lice was nec­es­sary.

“The Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre is the place where we come to do our sci­en­tif­ic and ev­i­den­tial analy­sis, and we have a lot of ex­hibits in­side there that we do not and can­not al­low per­sons to have ac­cess to,” he said.

In ad­di­tion, he said the sup­posed call for gang uni­ty had forced the au­thor­i­ties to take ex­tra pre­cau­tions.

He added, “We have to pre­pare for any­thing, and we want to as­sure the na­tion that we have it in hand, we are pre­pared and we are ready for any­thing that may take place.”

While em­pa­thet­ic to the cause ex­pressed by the pro­tes­tors, Smith called on the na­tion to al­low due process to take place.

How­ev­er, he said, “The DPP made a de­ci­sion based on the ev­i­dence that was be­fore him and I am say­ing this to the pro­tes­tors, that if any­one has any ev­i­dence or in­for­ma­tion that they can bring for­ward to the DPP to cause him to change his mind...but at this stage, no one has come for­ward with that.”

Fol­low­ing the four-month-long in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the Jan­u­ary 20 shoot­ing, which left Joshua Sama­roo, 31, dead and his com­mon-law wife Ka­ia Sealy, 24, paral­ysed, Smith said, “No one has come for­ward to bring any­thing to the po­lice or even to the DPP to make him change his mind, so he was able to make a de­ci­sion based on what was be­fore him.”

He again begged peo­ple to al­low the mat­ter to be tried in a court of law and not in the court of pub­lic opin­ion.