Jensen La Vende

Po­lice shot and killed two men with­in the space of three hours yes­ter­day.In the most re­cent killing, Joel Ap­pari­cio, a 31-year-old fa­ther of one, was killed while on his way to make a re­port at the San Juan Po­lice Sta­tion.Re­ports state that Ap­pari­cio, of Barataria, who al­so had an ad­dress at Bon Air West, Arou­ca, was run­ning north along Re­al Street around 11.30 am when he was shot.A self-em­ployed busi­ness­man, Ap­pari­cio had been ac­cused of pae­dophil­ia, his moth­er Wendy told on­look­ers mo­ments af­ter her son was killed. She added that af­ter be­ing in­formed of the ac­cu­sa­tion her son was on his way to the po­lice sta­tion.

Eye­wit­ness­es said as Ap­pari­cio ran past a near­by jew­el­ry shop, where an of­fi­cer had stopped to buy a bat­tery for her watch, a male of­fi­cer who was in a black Nis­san X-trail drove be­hind Ap­pari­cio and with­out warn­ing shot him.Ap­pari­cio fell on the side­walk and died. The of­fi­cer who shot Ap­pari­cio is al­leged to have said the de­ceased was not the man he thought he was and re­turned to his ve­hi­cle where he called his col­leagues.The man's moth­er, who was trail­ing be­hind and saw the killing, emp­tied her son's pock­ets in full view of on­look­ers to prove he had noth­ing il­le­gal on him."The man was run­ning along the road next thing I hear 'pop', a gun went off and the man fall on the ground, then I see the moth­er run­ning.You (the of­fi­cer) is a trained man, you sup­posed to ask a ques­tion, the man nev­er had noth­ing on him. I saw him run­ning up the road," one man said."I not tak­ing that. It's too much, it's too much man. I want to watch that man in his eye," a fe­male rel­a­tive screamed as Ap­pari­cio's moth­er shout­ed at the man who claimed her son's life, say­ing: "That is him."

Wendy, a pas­tor at the Je­sus Elam Church, Barataria, was heard scream­ing out for her son as on­look­ers grum­bled among them­selves that "them po­lice too wicked!" Oth­ers asked why po­lice weren't killing the "re­al crim­i­nals."As the crowd spoke ill of the law­men, one of­fi­cer was heard say­ing that none of the on­look­ers was men­tion­ing that pri­or to Ap­pari­cio run­ning up the street there was a rob­bery. That, how­ev­er, could not be ver­i­fied by po­lice when the T&T Guardian sought clar­i­ty.Ap­pari­cio was the eighth man to have been killed by a po­lice bul­let this year.