Gail Alexan­der

Apol­o­gy or not�probe that video.Po­lice Wel­fare and So­cial As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Michael Seales is main­tain­ing calls for po­lice probe of a racial­ly charged so­cial me­dia video done by a man who claimed to be cousin of shoot­ing vic­tim Adelle Gilbert–though he has now apol­o­gised for it.

The video, which went "vi­ral" over the week­end, shows a man al­leged to be one Den­nis Gilbert who claimed to be de­ceased Gilbert's rel­a­tive.It car­ried vit­ri­olic, racial­ly charged al­le­ga­tions against some "In­di­an" po­lice and Hin­dus and in­clud­ed cer­tain threats.

By 3 pm yes­ter­day–fol­low­ing wide cir­cu­la­tion–the man post­ed an­oth­er video apol­o­gis­ing to po­lice for his state­ments in the first video.How­ev­er, Seales held his call for a probe.

Adele Gilbert, of Em­ba­cadere, was shot last week Thurs­day af­ter be­ing chased by po­lice at Carl­ton Lane, San Fer­nan­do. Po­lice said Gilbert was want­ed for crimes rang­ing from mur­der to drug traf­fick­ing.

Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Harold Phillips sub­se­quent­ly or­dered a probe in­to the shoot­ing. The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty is al­so con­duct­ing an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Soon af­ter the video emerged, in which the man claim­ing to be Gilbert's rel­a­tive, threat­ened "all hell" would come down on of­fi­cers in Gilbert's death. He of­fered a sum of mon­ey for in­for­ma­tion on the is­sue. He al­so made al­le­ga­tions about oth­er po­lice, in­clud­ing of a racial tone, about some Hin­dus wear­ing the "pret­ty coloured bands on their hands (sic)."

In his sub­se­quent apol­o­gy video, the man said he'd made a "bad mis­take" and wasn't any killer. He said he'd talked about of­fer­ing mon­ey for in­for­ma­tion since he was up­set about his rel­a­tive's death and "want­ed jus­tice for his fam­i­ly."

He said he made the video when he'd just awok­en and had seen a video of his cousin's body. He apol­o­gised to the po­lice adding, his com­ments about Hin­dus/In­di­an of­fi­cers were his "ob­ser­va­tion" of "how he saw things," but weren't meant to be "no trig­ger."

Pri­or to the apol­o­gy video, Seales said the as­so­ci­a­tion had seen the video and al­so not­ed the "thread" of com­ments from oth­ers. Seales said it was im­per­a­tive a probe be launched in­to the video.

Say­ing that per­sons in Adele Gilbert's is­sue would have al­ready had con­cerns for their safe­ty, Seales added, "I hope, in as much as all that's hap­pened, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice will make arrange­ments to se­cure these peo­ple."

"We've seen the video and the as­per­sions cast (in its con­tent) and the as­so­ci­a­tion now has to con­sid­er how many like-mind­ed peo­ple (as the video's au­thor) are look­ing at the mat­ter of Gilbert's death the same way and may want to bring harm to po­lice. But we must al­low the rule of law to pre­vail."

"On the flip side, are the sen­ti­ments a video like this could gen­er­ate among po­lice. In ex­am­in­ing the sen­si­tiv­i­ties in­volved in the is­sue, you have to con­sid­er if, in view of this video, an of­fi­cer might get de­fen­sive when cit­i­zens are in dan­ger and he/she may think twice about putting his/her life on the line and whether they should re­spond."

"An of­fi­cer might say 'they don't care about us, so why we should care about them'. We don't want that to hap­pen. We know there are good po­lice of­fi­cers. But we must be care­ful since stud­ies have shown this has al­ready hap­pened over­seas."

"We've seen US in­ci­dents which lead to the for­ma­tion of the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment. At this point we don't know the mer­its of the probe in­to Adele Gilbert's death, but the is­sue now is to en­sure all of­fi­cers aren't af­fect­ed by a de­ci­sion that may not auger well with po­lice."

Seales main­tained his call for po­lice probe of the in­flam­ma­to­ry video even af­ter the man's apol­o­gy video ap­peared yes­ter­day. Seales said, "His apol­o­gy should be un­qual­i­fied."

"But he's al­ready sown the seeds of dis­cord–the first video has al­ready gone vi­ral. If he's gen­uine in his apol­o­gy, PSWA is will­ing to pro­vide free ser­vices to get him coun­selling if he's trau­ma­tised."

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wayne Sturge said, "The video war­rants a probe by po­lice and the DPP of al­leged sedi­tious state­ments in­cit­ing racial ha­tred and al­leged in­tent to com­mit a crim­i­nal act. Po­lice of­fi­cers are tasked to obey the law and very of­ten have no dis­cre­tion in ap­ply­ing such." AG CoP Phillips, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon and PCA head David West were un­avail­able yes­ter­day for com­ment.