Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

More than a week af­ter Tim­mi­an Fran­cois was shot and killed by po­lice at his New Grant home, his rel­a­tives were still await­ing the re­lease of his body yes­ter­day.

The fam­i­ly com­plained about the lack of in­for­ma­tion sur­round­ing the post-mortem ex­am­i­na­tion and the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion as they con­tin­ued to seek an­swers about the cir­cum­stances of his death.

They held a can­dle­light vig­il in New Grant on Sat­ur­day, at­tend­ed by hun­dreds of peo­ple, in­clud­ing Moru­ga/Table­land MP and Min­is­ter of Cul­ture Michelle Ben­jamin, who joined loved ones call­ing for jus­tice.

The pro­ces­sion be­gan at Hin­dus­tan Junc­tion and con­tin­ued to the fam­i­ly home, where can­dles and the head­lights of scores of ve­hi­cles il­lu­mi­nat­ed the dark­ness.

In a Face­book post ac­com­pa­ny­ing a video of her at­tend­ing the vig­il, Ben­jamin said she stood with Fran­cois’ loved ones in their grief and sup­port­ed their call for jus­tice.

“To­geth­er, we ho­n­our his mem­o­ry and of­fer com­fort and strength to those mourn­ing his loss. My thoughts and prayers re­main with his fam­i­ly dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time. May they find com­fort in the love and sup­port of our com­mu­ni­ty. Rest in peace, Bell. Gone from our sight but nev­er from our hearts,” she wrote.

Fran­cois’ broth­er-in-law, Hay­den Ram­per­sad, told Guardian Me­dia that rel­a­tives re­turned to the Princes Town Po­lice Sta­tion yes­ter­day but were again left with­out a clear an­swer. He said they were told an of­fi­cer would go to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre (FSC) and that some­one would con­tact them.

“Since last week Mon­day we run­ning up and down to see if we can get the body. No word. Each time we go to the sta­tion, they say­ing the mor­ti­cian not there. The mor­ti­cian not ready yet and they will get a call back to us when they ready,” Ram­per­sad said.

He said rel­a­tives spent sev­er­al hours at the sta­tion yes­ter­day try­ing to get in­for­ma­tion.

“I find we not get­ting no prop­er jus­ti­fi­ca­tion in re­gards to the mat­ter right now, what go­ing on, be­cause is just a run-around thing. That’s what I feel right now,” he said.

Ram­per­sad said the fam­i­ly was con­sid­er­ing step­ping up its ef­forts to get an­swers, in­clud­ing through protest ac­tion.

“That’s the next thing, be­cause we ain’t get­ting the body. We can’t get the body,” he said.

He al­so lament­ed the fi­nan­cial strain on the fam­i­ly, say­ing rel­a­tives had host­ed a wake every night since Fran­cois’ death while al­so fac­ing the cost of ar­rang­ing his fu­ner­al. Ram­per­sad said the fam­i­ly re­mained in the dark about the sta­tus of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, de­scrib­ing the sit­u­a­tion as frus­trat­ing and emo­tion­al­ly drain­ing.

He said rel­a­tives were not sur­prised by the large turnout at Sat­ur­day’s vig­il, as Fran­cois was well known and well liked in the com­mu­ni­ty and be­yond. Fran­cois had been em­ployed by the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port for more than a decade.

A se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer con­firmed yes­ter­day that the of­fi­cers in­volved in the shoot­ing re­mained on du­ty but de­clined to pro­vide de­tails about the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Fran­cois was shot on No­vem­ber 1 af­ter of­fi­cers from the South­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force went to his home on Naggee Road to de­tain him in con­nec­tion with a home in­va­sion in In­di­an Walk the pre­vi­ous day.

Ac­cord­ing to the po­lice ac­count, three of­fi­cers ar­rived at the res­i­dence at about 10.15 am and found the front door ajar. Af­ter knock­ing, call­ing out and an­nounc­ing their pres­ence, they en­tered the house af­ter hear­ing move­ment in­side.

The of­fi­cers claimed they heard a male voice com­ing from a bed­room say­ing, “I don’t care about no po­lice.” They fur­ther al­leged that Fran­cois was armed with a 24-inch cut­lass and ad­vanced to­wards them in a threat­en­ing man­ner, ig­nor­ing re­peat­ed in­struc­tions to drop the weapon.

Po­lice said that when Fran­cois was with­in two feet of the of­fi­cers and raised the cut­lass, two of­fi­cers each dis­charged two rounds in his di­rec­tion. He col­lapsed, and the of­fi­cers seized the cut­lass be­fore tak­ing him to the Princes Town Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where he was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival. His body was lat­er tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal mor­tu­ary, pend­ing a post-mortem ex­am­i­na­tion at the FSC.