Asha Javeed

Con­sul­tant Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

Last year, when the coun­try was in a State of Emer­gency (SoE) from the start to the end of the year, T&T had the high­est num­ber of po­lice in­volved killings at 55.

Dur­ing the first SoE, which be­gan on De­cem­ber 30, 2024 and end­ed on April 13, 2025, there were 19 fa­tal shoot­ings.

Dur­ing the sec­ond SoE , which be­gan on Ju­ly 18 and end­ed yes­ter­day, there were 27 fa­tal shoot­ings.

The sec­ond-high­est year of po­lice in­volved killings was 2020, dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, at 54.

From Jan­u­ary 2014 to De­cem­ber 2025, 505 peo­ple have lost their lives in 406 in­ci­dents of po­lice in­volved killings. Of that amount, the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) has re­ferred 55 mat­ters to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

 “The de­ci­sion to in­sti­tute and con­duct any crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings in these mat­ters rests sole­ly with the Of­fice of the DPP,” PCA di­rec­tor David West told Guardian Me­dia last week.

“With re­spect to out­stand­ing po­lice in­volved shoot­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions, the cur­rent num­ber of ‘open’ in­ves­ti­ga­tions is 170,” he said.

He not­ed that there is no fixed time­line for the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of a po­lice in­volved shoot­ing, as each mat­ter varies in com­plex­i­ty.

“Fac­tors such as the avail­abil­i­ty of foren­sic and bal­lis­tic re­ports, post-mortem find­ings, wit­ness state­ments, and ex­pert analy­sis can sig­nif­i­cant­ly af­fect the du­ra­tion of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The PCA con­tin­ues to ac­tive­ly pur­sue all out­stand­ing mat­ters and pri­ori­tis­es po­lice in­volved deaths as a cat­e­go­ry of se­ri­ous and sen­si­tive cas­es,” he said.

The lat­est in­ci­dent oc­curred on Jan­u­ary 20, when po­lice shot 31-year-old Joshua Sama­roo 19 times, killing him and in­jur­ing his com­mon-law wife Ka­ia Sealy, fol­low­ing a high-speed chase in St Au­gus­tine.

A video of the in­ci­dent showed Sama­roo had his two hands up, yet po­lice still shot at the ve­hi­cle.

For his part, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro said the of­fi­cers in­volved would not be sus­pend­ed.

He lat­er told Guardian Me­dia that the of­fi­cers “were not in­ter­fac­ing with the pub­lic.”

Fol­low­ing this, the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) and the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NATUC) is­sued state­ments cri­tiquing Gue­var­ro.

Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der, when asked about the in­ci­dent, fo­cused on the video, which showed Sama­roo sur­ren­der­ing to po­lice. He said there should be laws to reg­u­late the pub­lic shar­ing of in­for­ma­tion af­ter a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing.

“You know what is im­por­tant here? Ev­i­dence. And the po­lice could have brought it out ear­ly, you know. But we re­spect the rule of law... The po­lice al­so re­spect that, lis­ten, there’s an in­ves­ti­ga­tion tak­ing place. So, we must be cau­tious as to how we put things out in the pub­lic do­main,” he had said.

“Some­thing needs to be done with those who do that in terms of the law. You can­not put things out there, get the pub­lic opin­ion on on­ly what they saw for two min­utes, for a minute and a half, and then draw a con­clu­sion to it. And the per­sons who con­tin­ue to do that, there must be a law to treat with that. So that might be the next an­gle that we’re look­ing at,” he said.

A 28-minute video of the po­lice in­volved shoot­ing with Sama­roo lat­er emerged.

Alexan­der said here are now four in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the in­ci­dent- the First Di­vi­sion Of­fi­cer, the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau, Homi­cide and the PCA.

How the in­ves­ti­ga­tion un­folds

West ex­plained that the PCA fol­lows a process with their cas­es- when the or­gan­i­sa­tion re­ceives a no­ti­fi­ca­tion of a po­lice in­volved shoot­ing, a re­mit as­sess­ment based on the ini­tial in­for­ma­tion ob­tained is con­duct­ed.

“Dur­ing this as­sess­ment, a de­ter­mi­na­tion is made con­cern­ing which func­tions of the PCA are trig­gered, that is, whether a pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tion will be com­menced or whether the PCA will mon­i­tor a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion and con­duct an au­dit there­after.

“The con­duct of a pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­cludes the gath­er­ing of ev­i­dence, wit­ness state­ments, foren­sic and post-mortem re­ports, and all rel­e­vant op­er­a­tional and doc­u­men­tary ma­te­r­i­al.

“Fol­low­ing a pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tion, le­gal coun­sel may make a rec­om­men­da­tion on whether fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion is war­rant­ed, whether the PCA should switch to a mon­i­tor­ing and au­dit­ing role or whether there is suf­fi­cient in­for­ma­tion on which a de­ter­mi­na­tion may be made.

“Up­on com­ple­tion, in­ves­tiga­tive files are sub­mit­ted to the Au­thor­i­ty for re­view. Where ap­pro­pri­ate, mat­ters may be re­ferred to the Of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) or to the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) for the con­sid­er­a­tion of ini­ti­at­ing dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings or crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings, re­spec­tive­ly.

“Mat­ters may al­so be dis­sem­i­nat­ed to the Mag­is­tra­cy Reg­is­trar and the of­fice of the DPP pur­suant to Sec­tion 23(1)(b) for con­sid­er­a­tion of the com­mence­ment of a coro­ner’s in­quest,” he said.