Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Of­fi­cers in­volved in the shoot­ing deaths of Abi­gail John­son, Al­lana Dun­can and Ker­ron Ec­cles are said to be liv­ing in fear what with death threats made against them fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent. Ad­di­tion­al po­lice pa­trols have been de­ployed in the ar­eas where the of­fi­cers live. The of­fi­cers, who have been sent on leave fol­low­ing the Ju­ly 22 shoot­ing, have re­quest­ed po­lice pro­tec­tion and per­son­al firearms since they claim threats have been made against them. "We are liv­ing in fear for our lives and our fam­i­lies. Any rea­son­able think­ing per­son will have these fears," a source said. Se­nior South­ern Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers yes­ter­day ac­knowl­edged re­ceiv­ing the re­quest from the of­fi­cers. Ear­li­er last week the of­fi­cers met with Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs and re­quest­ed firearms. The Com­mis­sion­er re­port­ed­ly told the of­fi­cers he will con­sid­er the re­quest.

Of­fi­cers have al­so re­port­ed see­ing un­fa­mil­iar ve­hi­cles parked in ar­eas near their homes since the shoot­ing. The of­fi­cers, in their de­fence, said, "We did not go with the in­ten­tion of shoot­ing any­one. As an of­fi­cer you nev­er go with the in­ten­tion of harm­ing any­one. We were do­ing our du­ty, what we were trained to do." Coun­selling has been pro­vid­ed for the of­fi­cers who are said to be "shak­en and dis­turbed" by the en­tire in­ci­dent. They were al­so re­ceiv­ing sup­port from the mem­bers of the se­nior man­age­ment team in the South­ern Di­vi­sion. One of the of­fi­cers told the Sun­day Guardian, "It was a very trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ence. Yes, we are trained to han­dle volatile sit­u­a­tions but, when you sit and think about how close we came to los­ing our lives it does some­thing to you emo­tion­al­ly. You have to be a ro­bot to feel noth­ing,"

The shoot­ing, which oc­curred around 9pm at the cor­ner of Poui Trace and Rochard Road, Bar­rack­pore, has sparked heat­ed protests in Moru­ga as res­i­dents call for jus­tice. Sev­er­al wit­ness­es to the shoot­ing of John­son, 20, Dun­can, 28, and Ec­cles, 26, claim they were ex­e­cut­ed by po­lice. How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, of­fi­cers from the South­ern Di­vi­sion Homi­cide were told that a sus­pect want­ed in con­nec­tion with last month's dou­ble mur­der at Cir­cu­lar Road, San Fer­nan­do, was seen in a white B-15 Sen­tra at St Mary's Vil­lage. The of­fi­cers in­ter­cept­ed the ve­hi­cle and drove in­to its path at the in­ter­sec­tion, near Singh's Au­to Clin­ic. How­ev­er, they claim they were fired up­on by oc­cu­pants from the ve­hi­cle. They al­so claim that the right front and rear doors, right pan­el and wind screen of the po­lice ve­hi­cle were dam­aged. They claimed al­so that a pis­tol was found in the ve­hi­cle. Di­rec­tor of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty Gillian Lucky met with rel­a­tives of the shoot­ing vic­tims on Fri­day.

MORE IN­FO

The ve­hi­cle in which po­lice shoot­ing vic­tims Abi­gail John­son, Al­lana Dun­can and Ker­ron Ec­cles were seat­ed has been iden­ti­fied as a stolen car tak­en from its own­er at gun­point in Jan­u­ary. The ve­hi­cle own­er re­port­ed­ly iden­ti­fied the car as her prop­er­ty on Thurs­day. She al­so iden­ti­fied Ec­cles as the man who held her up at gun­point on Jan­u­ary 4 and took her car. The woman was shown the ve­hi­cle by in­ves­ti­ga­tors. She con­firmed that the ve­hi­cle, which has sev­er­al bul­let holes fol­low­ing the Ju­ly 22 shoot­ing, is hers. Ac­cord­ing to the rob­bery re­port the woman was sit­ting in her ve­hi­cle at Dow Vil­lage, Cal­i­for­nia around 6.45pm on Jan­u­ary 4, when she was ap­proached by a man who point­ed gun at her. He de­mand­ed that she get out of the ve­hi­cle. The ter­ri­fied woman jumped out of the car and the as­sailant sped off with it. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.