Li­censed elec­tri­cian and YTEPP lec­tur­er Al­lis­ter Pierre was yes­ter­day fa­tal­ly shot in the neck dur­ing a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing in which two of­fi­cers were al­so in­jured, with one suf­fer­ing a bro­ken arm. The tragedy hap­pened af­ter the of­fi­cers went to Pierre’s Brazil Vil­lage, San Raphael home to ar­rest him on an out­stand­ing do­mes­tic abuse war­rant.

Pierre was the third po­lice shoot­ing vic­tim in four days and the sixth for the year so far.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, at about 2.50 am yes­ter­day North­ern Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers shot Pierre when he re­port­ed­ly at­tacked two of them as they re­spond­ed to a re­port of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence at a house at Brazilome Branch Trace. He was lat­er tak­en to the Ari­ma Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal where he died while un­der­go­ing treat­ment. The po­lice re­port said one of the of­fi­cers sus­tained a bro­ken arm while his col­league sus­tained oth­er in­juries.

Po­lice said they were ex­e­cut­ing a war­rant for his Pierre’s ar­rest when they were at­tacked. They had a war­rant out for Pierre for ma­li­cious wound­ing and added that he was known to them hav­ing had a string of of­fences to his name, in­clud­ing lar­ce­ny, rob­bery, sex­u­al of­fences and drug pos­ses­sion.

How­ev­er, speak­ing with the Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Pierre’s wife Akeisha said she be­lieves her hus­band was mis­tak­en­ly tar­get­ed by the po­lice. She said her hus­band was not abu­sive to her and was not in­volved in all the of­fences not­ed by the po­lice.

She said yes­ter­day morn­ing the of­fi­cers came twice to her home and said it was on the sec­ond vis­it that things es­ca­lat­ed and her hus­band was at­tacked by the of­fi­cers while in her pres­ence in their bed­room. She said her hus­band was shot once in the neck and be­lieves the bul­let ric­o­cheted to the jaw.

“Al­lis­ter kept telling the po­lice that he did noth­ing wrong and asked them and begged them to tell him why they want­ed to ar­rest him. He even told the of­fi­cers ‘well, I didn’t hit my wife so tell me why al­lyuh do­ing this to me,” Akeisha said.

“He al­so told them that he had to teach YTEPP on Mon­day and they can­not lock him up…all this time, I stood on the op­po­site side of the room in shock as to what I was see­ing. They held him against the wall and beat him very bad­ly. He tried to de­fend him­self.”

She added, “At one point one of the of­fi­cers took up a sledge­ham­mer, which is his own tool that he us­es for his elec­tri­cal work and was forc­ing it to hold him so maybe they could say that he had a weapon on him. The po­lice of­fi­cers threat­ened him sev­er­al times to shoot him…I was shocked.”

How­ev­er, Akeisha ad­mit­ted she was forced to make a re­port to the po­lice against him for be­ing “row­dy” to­wards her last year.

“We had an ar­gu­ment and we both were very row­dy and loud and I did go to the po­lice and make a re­port, but I had begged them to come and talk to him and both of us, which the po­lice of­fi­cers did do. But since then to now Al­lis­ter and I have been liv­ing good and he nev­er hit me or threat­ened me in any way.”

Akeisha said she and Pierre, a fa­ther of one son, knew each oth­er for years but on­ly got mar­ried about six months ago. She said he worked hard at his trade and build­ing his com­pa­ny - Al­lis­tar’s Elec­tri­cal Ser­vices.

Akeisha said she in­tends to seek jus­tice for Pierre’s killing and added that she will be lodg­ing a re­port at the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) head­ed by David West.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith said he will await the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent which will be trig­gered. He, how­ev­er, not­ed that it was strange that peo­ple wit­ness po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings and are quick to point fin­gers of blame and wrong at the po­lice.

“It is al­ways in­ter­est­ing though that when­ev­er there is a po­lice shoot­ing, there are al­ways per­sons close to the de­ceased who saw every­thing and state that the po­lice were wrong as they be­come judge and ju­ry on the spot, with the me­dia splash­ing one side of the sto­ry. But when hun­dreds of young gang mem­bers kill fel­low young men in cold blood, no one ever sees any­thing,” Grif­fith said.

With re­spect to po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings in gen­er­al, Grif­fith said there is a war and po­lice of­fi­cers put their lives on the line to win this bat­tle.

“To those who choose to bury their heads in the sand, there is a vir­tu­al war on there, with hun­dreds of men car­ry­ing hun­dreds of il­le­gal firearms. The po­lice are ex­pect­ed to car­ry out their du­ty and put their lives on the line to win this bat­tle, but every time there is a fire­fight in this war the of­fi­cer is im­me­di­ate­ly tar­get­ed and found guilty by a few, with this al­ways be­ing the an­gle pub­lished, with­out an in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­ing held. I see this as very un­for­tu­nate,” he said.

Head of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty David West, when con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, said he would look in­to this lat­est in­ci­dent and launch an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Five oth­er dead­ly po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings for 2019

Jan­u­ary 19: Po­lice shot and killed Jamel Woods, 24, of Wa­ter­hole, Co­corite, while he was on his way home. Rel­a­tives who said they wit­nessed the in­ci­dent claimed Woods was robbed and shot to death.

Jan­u­ary 23: Po­lice shot and killed rob­bery sus­pect and ex-sol­dier Ver­non Si­mon in Ca­roni.

Jan­u­ary 24: Po­lice shot rob­bery sus­pect Casey Watts, of Beetham Gar­dens, while at the Frank Jee­ta In­spec­tion Sta­tion along the East­ern Main Road, San Juan. Watts died at the hos­pi­tal.

Feb­ru­ary 7: Po­lice shot 24-year-old Al­lan Muhammed at Crown Trace, En­ter­prise. Muhammed died at the Ch­agua­nas Health Fa­cil­i­ty.

Feb­ru­ary 9: An off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer shot and killed David Sim­mons, a PH taxi-dri­ver, while at the Ed­in­burgh 500 taxi stand at An­drew Street, Ch­agua­nas.