Father of jet ski victim: ‘We are being denied justice’

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA and

STEPHON NICHOLAS

Near­ly a month af­ter sev­en-year-old An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie was killed in a jet ski col­li­sion at To­ba­go’s Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park, her griev­ing fa­ther says his fam­i­ly feels jus­tice is slip­ping fur­ther away as po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue with­out charges be­ing laid.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Arnold Jo­gie ex­pressed frus­tra­tion, anger and grow­ing sus­pi­cion over the pace of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the April 8 tragedy, which sparked na­tion­al out­rage and re­newed scruti­ny of ma­rine safe­ty en­force­ment in To­ba­go.

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

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

Jo­gie said the fam­i­ly feels aban­doned by the jus­tice sys­tem de­spite what he de­scribed as over­whelm­ing eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny sur­round­ing the in­ci­dent.

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

Call­ing on in­ves­ti­ga­tors to act de­ci­sive­ly, he in­sist­ed that nu­mer­ous peo­ple wit­nessed the jet ski op­er­a­tor al­leged­ly breach a des­ig­nat­ed bathing zone be­fore crash­ing in­to his fam­i­ly.

“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, a for­mer stu­dent of San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry School, was va­ca­tion­ing in To­ba­go with rel­a­tives when the tragedy oc­curred. Re­ports stat­ed that she was bathing with fam­i­ly mem­bers in­side a marked safe swim­ming area at Pi­geon Point when a jet ski al­leged­ly en­tered the re­strict­ed zone and struck them.

An­gel­i­ca, her par­ents and an un­cle were all hit dur­ing the col­li­sion. She lat­er died at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. An au­top­sy con­firmed she suf­fered mul­ti­ple trau­mat­ic in­juries, par­tic­u­lar­ly to the head.

The 32-year-old sus­pect was ar­rest­ed at his Canaan home dur­ing the ear­ly hours of April 9 af­ter al­leged­ly flee­ing the scene. How­ev­er, he was sub­se­quent­ly re­leased pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Rod­hill Kirk said po­lice have com­plet­ed ex­ten­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tions and the mat­ter is now be­fore the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

“The po­lice are pro­fes­sion­als. While we serve the pub­lic, we do not al­low pub­lic im­pa­tience to cloud our judg­ment and sac­ri­fice ac­cu­ra­cy for speed,” Kirk said in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia.

Kirk ex­plained that in­ves­ti­ga­tors had com­piled a file and sub­mit­ted it to the DPP for le­gal ad­vice and fur­ther con­sul­ta­tion.

“You would agree that this is a unique sit­u­a­tion and it is a very com­plex mat­ter. We must op­er­ate with­in the perime­ters of the law and not in an ad hoc man­ner,” he said.

“It is for the DPP to let us know whether we meet that thresh­old for bring­ing charges against any­one and what are the rec­om­mend­ed charges.”

The tragedy has reignit­ed con­cerns over the reg­u­la­tion of jet ski op­er­a­tions and the en­force­ment of ma­rine safe­ty laws at To­ba­go beach­es.

In the af­ter­math of the in­ci­dent, eye­wit­ness­es claimed some op­er­a­tors had been rid­ing reck­less­ly near bathers short­ly be­fore the fa­tal col­li­sion. Ques­tions were al­so raised about the ab­sence of ma­rine pa­trols and the ef­fec­tive­ness of re­stric­tions with­in pro­tect­ed bathing ar­eas.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has since crit­i­cised po­lice for what he de­scribed as in­ad­e­quate re­spons­es to re­ports of il­le­gal jet ski ac­tiv­i­ty at Pi­geon Point.

Au­gus­tine warned that if the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly faces le­gal ac­tion aris­ing from the tragedy, he would in­struct at­tor­neys to pur­sue ac­tion against the cen­tral gov­ern­ment and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie.

Mean­while, at a meet­ing in­volv­ing jet ski and reef tour stake­hold­ers ear­li­er this week, jet ski in­struc­tor Richard Ash claimed re­peat­ed warn­ings had been is­sued to the THA about un­safe prac­tices with­in the Buc­coo Reef Ma­rine Park.

“It could have been pre­vent­ed,” Ash said, while warn­ing that an­oth­er ac­ci­dent could oc­cur if prop­er nav­i­ga­tion­al mark­ers are not in­stalled for wa­ter­craft op­er­a­tors.

Just days be­fore the fa­tal in­ci­dent, the Di­vi­sion of En­vi­ron­ment, Cli­mate Re­silience and En­er­gy had re­mind­ed stake­hold­ers of the op­er­a­tional rules gov­ern­ing the ma­rine park fol­low­ing a March 27 stake­hold­er meet­ing.

In an April 2 me­dia re­lease, the di­vi­sion stat­ed that jet skis are pro­hib­it­ed with­in the ma­rine park ex­cept for au­tho­rised tran­sit and that all ves­sels must re­main with­in des­ig­nat­ed nav­i­ga­tion­al chan­nels.