Maxi driver held after Curepe altercation

A 27-year-old maxi taxi dri­ver has been ar­rest­ed fol­low­ing an al­ter­ca­tion with a Li­cens­ing Of­fi­cer along the South­ern Main Road in Curepe on Mon­day morn­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), the in­ci­dent oc­curred around 10.30 am near the East Grove Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment with­in the St Joseph Po­lice Dis­trict.

Po­lice said PC Ali and PC Hard­ing, at­tached to the Las Lo­mas Po­lice Post, re­spond­ed to a re­port of an as­sault on a Li­cens­ing Of­fi­cer.

The of­fi­cer re­port­ed he was car­ry­ing out his du­ties when he was al­leged­ly as­sault­ed by the dri­ver of a green band maxi taxi. Po­lice said the of­fi­cer was struck twice in the face and the Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty ve­hi­cle was lat­er chased with a wheel span­ner be­fore the dri­ver left the scene.

Of­fi­cers lat­er went to the Ca­roni Li­cens­ing Of­fice where the sus­pect, of Ed­in­burgh 500, Ch­agua­nas, was iden­ti­fied and ar­rest­ed. He was tak­en along with the Li­cens­ing Of­fi­cer to the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion where en­quiries con­tin­ue.

Video shows con­fronta­tion

Tele­vi­sion footage and videos cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia show part of the con­fronta­tion be­tween the dri­ver and Li­cens­ing Of­fi­cers.

The video be­gins af­ter of­fi­cers had al­ready in­struct­ed Bowen to pull aside. Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, the dri­ver had stopped in the road­way to pick up a pas­sen­ger and was told to move off the road. He re­port­ed­ly did not ful­ly com­ply and of­fi­cers or­dered him to ex­it the ve­hi­cle.

Bowen re­fused and was then grabbed by one of the of­fi­cers, lead­ing to a phys­i­cal scuf­fle.

The footage cap­tures the mo­ment of­fi­cers asked pas­sen­gers to leave the maxi taxi as the con­fronta­tion es­ca­lat­ed. One pas­sen­ger at­tempt­ed to calm the sit­u­a­tion while Bowen de­mand­ed the re­turn of his prop­er­ty.

The in­ci­dent un­fold­ed in full view of mo­torists and com­muters along the South­ern Main Road.

Com­mis­sion­er con­firms in­ci­dent

Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er Clive Clarke con­firmed an in­ci­dent oc­curred and said the mat­ter is now un­der po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Clarke said he has not yet re­ceived the of­fi­cial re­port and can­not com­ment fur­ther un­til it is sub­mit­ted. He added li­cens­ing of­fi­cers have lim­it­ed en­force­ment pow­ers and phys­i­cal con­fronta­tions are not part of their nor­mal op­er­at­ing prac­tice.