David West says PCA fulfilled role in Laventille police killings probe

DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) Di­rec­tor David West says the au­thor­i­ty suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed its role in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the 2018 fa­tal po­lice shoot­ing of five men in Laven­tille, fol­low­ing a High Court rul­ing that or­dered the State to pay their fam­i­lies more than $4 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion.

The case con­cerns the deaths of Mechack Dou­glas, Sha­keem Fran­cois, Shaun­dell St Clair, Nicholas Bark­er and Kudiem Phillip, who were shot near Up­per Whar­ton Street, Trou Macaque Road, Laven­tille on Oc­to­ber 25, 2018.

In a re­cent judg­ment, High Court Judge Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar up­held claims of as­sault and bat­tery and mis­fea­sance in pub­lic of­fice against the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, re­ject­ing the State’s claim that the men died in a shoot-out with po­lice.

West, in a brief in­ter­view, said the PCA had al­ready con­duct­ed its in­ves­ti­ga­tion, com­plet­ed its re­port and for­ward­ed its find­ings to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), Roger Gas­pard, SC, on Au­gust 5, 2020, with a rec­om­men­da­tion that the of­fi­cers in­volved be charged with mur­der.

He said the au­thor­i­ty’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty end­ed once the re­port was sub­mit­ted in­to the crim­i­nal jus­tice process.

“This shows that the PCA has done their part in the crim­i­nal process,” West said.

He added that the mat­ter was sub­se­quent­ly re­ferred for fur­ther ac­tion with­in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), and said any de­ci­sion on charges now rests with the DPP.

The court, in its rul­ing, found the po­lice ver­sion of events lacked cred­i­bil­i­ty, point­ing to au­top­sy ev­i­dence in­di­cat­ing close-range gun­shots and in­con­sis­ten­cies in the State’s ac­count.

Jus­tice Ay­ers-Cae­sar al­so crit­i­cised the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent, not­ing fail­ures in foren­sic sup­port and wit­ness han­dling, and said the short­com­ings raised se­ri­ous con­cerns about how the case was man­aged.

The men’s fam­i­lies al­leged that Dou­glas was play­ing cards and lis­ten­ing to mu­sic when of­fi­cers en­tered the area and opened fire, while oth­ers were beat­en or shot as they tried to flee. One man sur­vived.

The State main­tained the men had en­gaged po­lice in a gun­fight.

The court award­ed dam­ages to­talling more than $4 mil­lion, in­clud­ing ag­gra­vat­ed and vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages.

The fam­i­lies were rep­re­sent­ed by Lee Mer­ry, SC, and Ajesh Sumes­sar. The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Ste­fan Jaikaran and Ja­nine Joseph.