Angelica’s dad frustrated; no charges yet in jet ski incident

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

Griev­ing fa­ther Arnold Jo­gie says he feels his fam­i­ly is be­ing de­nied jus­tice as po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue in­to the jet ski tragedy that claimed the life of his sev­en-year-old daugh­ter, An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie, at Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park, To­ba­go, near­ly a month ago.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Jo­gie said he is an­gry and dis­ap­point­ed that no charges have yet been laid de­spite eye­wit­ness ac­counts al­leg­ing the jet ski op­er­a­tor en­tered a des­ig­nat­ed bathing zone be­fore crash­ing in­to his fam­i­ly.

“We’re an­gry about that. Why is it tak­ing so long? Why are they try­ing to save this guy,” Jo­gie said.

Ques­tion­ing the de­lay, he added, “We are start­ing to get sus­pi­cious. Do they want to sweep it un­der the car­pet? I don’t know.”

Jo­gie said the ex­pla­na­tions have brought lit­tle com­fort to his griev­ing fam­i­ly.

“Yes, yes, we feel we are be­ing de­nied jus­tice,” he said.

He called on au­thor­i­ties to act de­ci­sive­ly, in­sist­ing that many peo­ple wit­nessed what hap­pened that day.

“Do their jobs prop­er­ly and put this guy to jus­tice be­cause every­body see that he did wrong. Why should you save him? We want jus­tice,” he plead­ed.

An­gel­i­ca was killed on April 8 while va­ca­tion­ing in To­ba­go with rel­a­tives. Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the child was bathing with fam­i­ly mem­bers in­side a marked safe swim­ming area at Pi­geon Point when a jet ski al­leged­ly breached the zone and struck them. An­gel­i­ca, her par­ents and an un­cle were all hit in the col­li­sion. An au­top­sy lat­er con­firmed that An­gel­i­ca died from mul­ti­ple trau­mat­ic in­juries, par­tic­u­lar­ly to the head.

The 32-year-old sus­pect was ar­rest­ed hours af­ter the in­ci­dent at his Canaan home but was lat­er re­leased pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Rod­hill Kirk pre­vi­ous­ly said po­lice were con­tin­u­ing in­ter­views with wit­ness­es and gath­er­ing ev­i­dence be­fore seek­ing ad­vice from the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP). Kirk al­so main­tained that in­ves­ti­ga­tors would not “com­pro­mise ac­cu­ra­cy for speed” in the mat­ter.

The tragedy sparked na­tion­al out­rage and re­newed calls for stricter reg­u­la­tion of jet ski op­er­a­tions and ma­rine polic­ing in To­ba­go. In the af­ter­math of the in­ci­dent, eye­wit­ness­es