No charges yet for mom, daughter held during protest

The or­gan­is­er of a protest and her moth­er, who were joint­ly ar­rest­ed by po­lice dur­ing a demon­stra­tion near the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) on Wednes­day af­ter­noon, have not been ar­rest­ed as of 8:47 am to­day.

Ayssa Phillip and her moth­er Camille Cares­quero were ar­rest­ed by po­lice as they staged a demon­stra­tion in sup­port of Ka­ia Sealy, who sur­vived a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing on Jan­u­ary 20.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment Phillip and Cares­quero's at­tor­ney San­jiv Bood­hu con­firmed that both women were not charged ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion from Wood­brook Po­lice.

Po­lice briefly al­lowed Phillip and oth­er pro­tes­tors gath­ered to say a prayer.

Phillip then read from a pre­pared state­ment where she ques­tioned the ev­i­dence pre­sent­ed to the DPP by po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors, rais­ing con­cerns sur­round­ing the cir­cum­stances be­hind Sealy's wound­ing and the le­gal ba­sis for charges to be laid against her.

As pro­tes­tors be­gan to chant slo­gans call­ing for the re­moval of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, ACP North-West Sean Garvin Hen­ry who stood near­by warned them that chant­i­ng would not be al­lowed.

Af­ter a brief ex­change with oth­er demon­stra­tors who chal­lenged the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the State of Emer­gency (SoE) reg­u­la­tions, Hen­ry left.

How­ev­er, be­fore Phillips could fin­ish, Snr Supt Edgar Baird with the help of oth­er of­fi­cers ar­rest­ed Phillip, as her moth­er held on­to her from be­hind.

Be­fore the protest be­gan yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, one demon­stra­tor and so­cial me­dia per­son­al­i­ty Ja­son De Sil­va who ar­rived at the pro­posed stag­ing area ear­ly, was ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers of the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF).

Po­lice sources said while De Sil­va may be charged with us­ing in­sult­ing lan­guage, it was un­clear whether he was charged as of Thurs­day morn­ing.