Murdered cop’s family wants death penalty for killers

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

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Two aunts of mur­dered po­lice of­fi­cer Romell Dou­glas be­lieve that he was lured and killed over a dis­pute for mon­ey aris­ing out of a car ac­ci­dent. How­ev­er, they want his re­main­ing killer/s to face the death penal­ty.

Di­anne An­drews and Son­ja Dou­glas spoke about the death of their rel­a­tive at their Mor­vant home yes­ter­day.

Dou­glas said: “The day be­fore, he (Dou­glas) called him (the oth­er dri­ver) and told him that if he didn’t want to pay him, he would have to pay him through courts and he would have to pay him more. So that’s why they set out to kill him. They told him he would get more than the car cost if he had to go to court.”

Po­lice re­port­ed that Dou­glas, 48, was sit­ting in his white Nis­san Ti­i­da along South Bank Road, near Hy­draulic Trace, Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni, around 11.05 pm on Tues­day night when gun­men con­front­ed him.

Dur­ing the con­fronta­tion, Dou­glas shot one of the men be­fore he was shot by the man’s ac­com­plices. Po­lice are now hunt­ing two men who lat­er took their wound­ed friend to the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal, where he died. He was lat­er iden­ti­fied as 19-year-old Adetole Am­mon, of Print­eryville, Ari­ma.

Both women yes­ter­day said they hope that when the re­main­ing two men are held, they will face the full brunt of the law.

“I think when they get him, they should hang him. I’m sor­ry to say that, but I think he de­serves to be hanged,” An­drews said.

Her sis­ter added that she feels no re­morse for any­one who kills, so she too was in favour of the killers re­ceiv­ing the death penal­ty.

The women said on­ly af­ter Am­mon was con­firmed dead, a cousin of the slain of­fi­cer told fam­i­ly mem­bers that she was part of the med­ical team try­ing to save Am­mon’s life, not know­ing he was part­ly re­spon­si­ble for her rel­a­tive’s death.

The women added that while they un­der­stood that the job of a po­lice of­fi­cer is dan­ger­ous, they nev­er ex­pect­ed this to hap­pen. They said af­ter be­com­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer, Dou­glas moved out of the fam­i­ly home and be­gan his own fam­i­ly and was the fa­ther to three chil­dren.

“We nev­er thought that he would be dead now, you know, be­cause he doesn’t both­er no­body. When he is not in his job, he doesn’t both­er any­body. He is a cool guy. Very fam­i­ly ori­en­tat­ed, be­cause he deals with his kids, you know. Take care of them and every­thing,” An­drews said.

She added that she re­turned to the coun­try from the US three weeks ago in prepa­ra­tion for a week-long cel­e­bra­tion this week for a fam­i­ly re­union. That re­union will now be con­vert­ed to fu­ner­al arrange­ments.

An­drews said: “It’s not the time where we could be spread­ing joy when this hap­pened. And it’s still try­ing to go over in your head what hap­pened. It will be some time be­fore we get over it, es­pe­cial­ly the moth­er and sis­ter and broth­er.”

Both women said Dou­glas was a ded­i­cat­ed po­lice of­fi­cer, some­thing his for­mer col­league and po­lice pub­lic in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer, ASP Owie Rus­sell, con­firmed.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme yes­ter­day, Rus­sell said he worked with Dou­glas dur­ing his time in the West­ern Di­vi­sion, where Dou­glas was last as­signed.

“That gen­tle­man, he was a very good of­fi­cer. He was al­ways ready, al­ways came to work in that frame of mind to work. Al­ways tac­ti­cal, al­ways ready, al­ways. He used to, he liked the hours in the night.”

He added, “He was nev­er in­ter­est­ed in pro­mo­tion. He used to say he want to stay and guide the of­fi­cers in the charge room. He spent quite a bit of his ca­reer in the Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tion De­part­ment, a wealth of knowl­edge.”

Rus­sell said that was the mem­o­ry he had of Dou­glas, and his ded­i­ca­tion to du­ty would al­ways re­main with him, adding that he nev­er dis­played any dis­re­spect or rude­ness to his col­leagues and su­pe­ri­ors.