Police: No evidence that LGBTQ community being targeted

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Po­lice say there is no ev­i­dence to date sug­gest­ing mem­bers of the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty are be­ing tar­get­ed.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Joanne Archie said the mur­ders of two mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty are be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the Homi­cide Bu­reau.

“As it re­lates to the homi­cides of two mem­bers of the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty, I com­mu­ni­cat­ed with the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions, and my in­for­ma­tion is that their in­ves­ti­ga­tions thus far have not un­earthed any ev­i­dence to sug­gest that these mur­ders are con­nect­ed or that per­sons of the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty are be­ing tar­get­ed.”

On Au­gust 8, 41-year-old Kwasi Dion Gill was found mur­dered at Tex­tile Hill, La­dy Young Road, Bel­mont. He was last seen alive the night be­fore when he left his Beetham Gar­dens home to at­tend a func­tion. His ve­hi­cle was al­so stolen.

Last month, the body of Ko­by Daniel Thomas was found near a track­ing fa­cil­i­ty on Mount St Cather­ine, Ch­aguara­mas, af­ter a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer who ar­rived for du­ty that morn­ing dis­cov­ered the body. There was a sin­gle gun­shot to the back of his neck.

Archie added that while both men were iden­ti­fied as be­ing mem­bers of the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty, no nexus was found dur­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the Coali­tion Ad­vo­cat­ing for In­clu­sion of Sex­u­al Ori­en­ta­tion (CAISO) said the com­mu­ni­ty is reel­ing from the enor­mous loss and joins oth­er com­mu­ni­ties who lost loved ones to vi­o­lence.

“We can­not help but feel an­gry, afraid, anx­ious and dev­as­tat­ed. Our lives feel very frag­ile. We need jus­tice and pro­tec­tion! Nat­u­ral­ly, we have many ques­tions about what hap­pened. We hope that the TTPS gives this case their best ef­fort and brings those re­spon­si­ble to jus­tice. As the case un­folds, we trust that a du­ty of care and em­pa­thy pre­vails for all in­volved, in­clud­ing the TTPS, the me­dia, and the wider pub­lic,” CAISO said.