Derek Achong

Screams, tears and ac­cu­sa­tions of racial per­se­cu­tion were heard yes­ter­day in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court as 33 men ap­peared in court ac­cused of be­ing gang mem­bers. At­tor­ney Ce­cil Pope, rep­re­sent­ing two of the ac­cused, told the court that it was on­ly be­cause of the colour of his clients' skin that they were charged un­der the re­cent­ly passed An­ti-Gang Act. Pope said: "Per­sons are be­ing ar­rest­ed and charged at the whim and fan­cy of the po­lice. If I was with my clients at the time, I would have been charged with be­ing a gang mem­ber al­so." Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar, pre­sid­ing in the Eighth Mag­is­trate's Court, dis­missed Pope's claims say­ing the ju­di­cial sys­tem was not racist. Ay­ers-Cae­sar told Pope, a for­mer mag­is­trate, the court was the wrong fo­rum for voic­ing such opin­ions. Of the 33 men all charged with be­ing gang mem­bers un­der sec­tion 5 of the Act, 18 were ac­cused of be­ing mem­bers of the "Pic­ton Road Gang", while the oth­ers were ac­cused of be­ing mem­bers of the "Gon­za­les Gang" and "John Street Gang", of Co­corite.

Af­ter the charges were read, one moth­er who was brought to tears, plead­ed her son's in­no­cence. She said: "My son is no gang­ster. He works as a se­cu­ri­ty guard. If he was in­volved in a gang I would have aban­doned him and sup­port­ed the of­fi­cers who ar­rest­ed him." The men ac­cused of be­ing mem­bers of the Pic­ton Road Gang in­clud­ed Ken­neth James, Learie James, Olafe­li Nurse, An­drin Maraj, An­drew William, Dar­rel James, Ke­ston Thomas, Jesten Su­perville, Kern Charles, Fran­cis Har­ford, Randy Joseph, Kendall Hayes, Mark Mo­hammed, Michael Hay­ley, Akeed Wor­rell, Lemel Guy, David Mitchell and Dave Mitchell. An­oth­er group of men ar­rest­ed by Bel­mont po­lice last Thurs­day al­so burst out in­to tears af­ter the charge of be­ing mem­bers of the "Gon­za­les Gang" was read to them. One of the men, Quin­cy Porter, claimed that he was on his way home from work at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in prepa­ra­tion for to­day's In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions when he was ar­rest­ed.

Porter said: "I am from Laven­tille. How can I be a mem­ber of a gang in Gon­za­les when I don't even live in that area." The men were all re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody and their mat­ters were ad­journed to dates in mid-Sep­tem­ber, much to the dis­may of their at­tor­neys who all plead­ed for their clients' mat­ters to be ex­pe­dit­ed. Un­der the An­ti-Gang Act, passed in Par­lia­ment on May 3, this year, per­sons charged with be­ing mem­bers of gangs are to be re­mand­ed in cus­tody for 120 days, af­ter which they may ap­ply to a judge in cham­bers for bail. Since the an­nounce­ment of the state of emer­gency by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Au­gust 21, more than 150 peo­ple have ap­peared in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court on gang re­lat­ed charges. Three men from Co­corite, Sea Lots and El So­cor­ro have since ap­peared charged with be­ing gang lead­ers. Cedric Burke, 36, of Sea Lots was ac­cused of be­ing the leader of a gang from Pro­duc­tion Av­enue, Sea Lots, while De­vanand Singh, 42, of El So­cor­ro was charged with be­ing the leader of the "De­vanand Gang". Both men ap­peared be­fore Ay­ers-Cae­sar on Mon­day. Last week Co­corite res­i­dent Ja­son Lewis was charged with be­ing the leader of the "Wa­ter Hole Gang". Burke, Singh and Lewis all face up to 25 years in prison if con­vict­ed, while gang mem­bers face a max­i­mum sen­tence of ten years' im­pris­on­ment.