Geisha Kow­lessar

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) has hired a Se­nior Coun­sel, as it seeks to "set a prece­dent" in the way in which the probe of three peo­ple killed by po­lice must be han­dled. And the PCA's di­rec­tor, a tough-talk­ing Gillian Lucky, has made it clear that the PCA would not be ob­struct­ed from con­duct­ing its probe re­gard­ing ev­i­dence gath­er­ing, even as the po­lice con­duct their own in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the shoot­ing deaths of Abi­gail John­son, 20, her best friend, Al­lana Dun­can, 28, and con­struc­tion work­er, Keron Ec­cles, 26. The three were killed when po­lice in­ter­cept­ed their car in Bar­rack­pore on Ju­ly 22. Lucky, who held a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day at the PCA's build­ing in Port-of-Spain, de­clined to name the SC, say­ing that the lawyer specif­i­cal­ly re­quest­ed not to be pub­licly iden­ti­fied.

"We felt we need­ed the ex­per­tise of a Se­nior Coun­sel be­cause this mat­ter is set­ting a prece­dent and the PCA will be held to the high­est scruti­ny and we want to en­sure we get it right," Lucky ex­plained. She al­so said she met with Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard ear­li­er this week. De­scrib­ing the meet­ing as fruit­ful, Lucky added: "The meet­ing with the DPP was very in­for­ma­tive...The PCA ex­plained the full­ness of its role." The PCA's in­ves­ti­ga­tors have been gath­er­ing ev­i­dence, af­ter which a for­mal re­port will then by sub­mit­ted. "At the end of the com­pi­la­tion of the re­ports, a de­ter­mi­na­tion will be made as to where that re­port will be head­ing and cer­tain rec­om­men­da­tions will be made," Lucky said. "The PCA does not have the pow­er to ar­rest or charge any­one."

Asked if the in­ves­ti­ga­tions had point­ed to the di­rec­tion of crim­i­nal charges be­ing laid on the po­lice of­fi­cers in­volved in the Moru­ga in­ci­dent, Lucky said: "It will be pre­ma­ture to de­ter­mine that. "An in­ves­ti­ga­tion has to be neu­tral...All the ev­i­dence must be gath­ered and rec­om­men­da­tions will then be made," she added. Lucky al­so made men­tion of the 2009 in­ci­dent in­volv­ing Rio Claro grounds­man George "Ozzie" Ash­by, who was shot dead by po­lice. Ash­by, 52, of San Pe­dro Road, an em­ploy­ee of Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny (MTS), who worked at Tabaquite Com­pos­ite School, was shot in the chest while in his car on Tabaquite Main Road. That in­ci­dent sparked a se­ries of fiery protests by Rio Claro res­i­dents, as they de­mand­ed jus­tice for Ash­by's killing.

"I want to give the as­sur­ance to the pub­lic that there are some mat­ters which may have gone cold over the years, and again once it is with­in the re­mit of the PCA and there is a dis­cre­tion that can be ex­er­cised by the PCA if in­ci­dents have oc­curred out­side of a one-year time pe­ri­od, these are mat­ters that will en­gage the at­ten­tion of the PCA," Lucky said. She said be­cause of the "pas­sage of time," the PCA might "nev­er be able" to get all the ev­i­dence it need­ed, but ul­ti­mate­ly it led to a crit­i­cal ex­am­i­na­tion re­gard­ing the man­ner in which is­sues were con­duct­ed. "It would point to any pol­i­cy and train­ing needs that these in­ci­dents speak to, and if there are, then we have to make sure we are up­grad­ing every­thing be­cause all stake­hold­ers want jus­tice," Lucky said.

Be­fore she as­sumed of­fice on De­cem­ber 29, 2010, she said, there were oth­er com­plaints in­volv­ing po­lice of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing civil­ians be­ing killed by of­fi­cers two or three years ago. "I have called for all the re­ports on these par­tic­u­lar mat­ters and I specif­i­cal­ly high­light­ed the Ash­by mat­ter, be­cause we are ac­tu­al­ly in con­tact with per­sons who have been cham­pi­oning the cause," Lucky added. She said when the PCA ob­tained the re­ports on these spe­cif­ic in­ci­dents, her in­ves­ti­ga­tor would have to sift through and de­ter­mine "which ones can be dealt it re­al­is­ti­cal­ly." "And even if we can't deal with the oth­ers, we will at least con­tact those fam­i­ly mem­bers who are alive and make a de­ter­mi­na­tion that at the end of the day, even though some­thing may not have specif­i­cal­ly come out of that par­tic­u­lar in­ci­dent, we are go­ing to learn from those ex­pe­ri­ences," Lucky said.

She said what cit­i­zens re­al­ly want­ed was thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tions, adding, "let the chips fall as they may," based on the ev­i­dence giv­en. Lucky said the PCA would be will­ing to probe cas­es as far back as three years. "But that will not be the on­ly time pe­ri­od I will use to de­ter­mine a time pe­ri­od," she said. "It will be based on the grav­i­ty of the cir­cum­stances that will de­ter­mine the pri­or­i­ty that will be giv­en. "And in in­stances where the cir­cum­stances reach to a cer­tain stage in terms of in­ten­si­ty, that will al­so de­ter­mine how we will deal with it." She stressed that it would be "re­al­is­ti­cal­ly dealt with," based on the PCA's man­pow­er. The PCA has eight in­ves­ti­ga­tors, but that num­ber is ex­pect­ed to be in­creased to 15.