Derek Achong

A probe has been launched in­to the death of a San Juan fish­mon­ger whose body was yes­ter­day found hang­ing from a rafter in a hold­ing cell at San Juan Po­lice Sta­tion. Ac­cord­ing to se­nior po­lice sources, Ja­son Lord, 30, of Laven­tille Road, San Juan, was found with his belt around his neck around 11.15 am, by of­fi­cers on du­ty at the sta­tion. The law­men re­port­ed­ly at­tempt­ed to re­sus­ci­tate Lord but were un­suc­cess­ful. The T&T Guardian was re­li­ably in­formed that Lord was held two hours ear­li­er at his home by war­rant of­fi­cers of the Court and Process Branch, who took him to the po­lice sta­tion. Lord, the fa­ther of a five-year-old son, was held on a court-is­sued war­rant for more than $32,000 in main­te­nance, po­lice sources said.

When the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the sta­tion yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Lord's in­con­solable rel­a­tives blamed the of­fi­cers at the sta­tion for their rel­a­tive's death and called for an in­de­pen­dent probe. "My son would not kill him­self. He was not de­pressed. This is mur­der," Lord's moth­er Krys­ta­belle Lord screamed. "Some­body have to pay for this. God don't sleep!" she said. Krys­ta­belle said her son was on the road to a suc­cess­ful life, with him open­ing a fish stall at the new­ly- ren­o­vat­ed San Juan Mar­ket. "He told us on Mon­day he was go­ing to Cana­da next month to do ap­ple har­vest­ing," Krys­ta­belle said.

Lord's sis­ter Krys­tal al­so ques­tioned why her broth­er was al­lowed to be in pos­ses­sion of a belt in the hold­ing cell, al­so claim­ing that pris­on­ers were not al­lowed to keep their belts and shoe laces while at the po­lice sta­tion. Lord's rel­a­tives al­so claimed that they were not in­formed of his death by po­lice but rather through a third par­ty. "That is not 21st cen­tu­ry polic­ing. They very un­pro­fes­sion­al in that po­lice sta­tion," Krys­tal said. ASP Ma­habir is lead­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the in­ci­dent.