An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­nal­is­apaul@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice shoot­ing vic­tim Ka­ia Sealy is re­fus­ing to give up her fight for jus­tice even as she re­mains con­fined to a hos­pi­tal bed and con­tin­ues to be de­nied ac­cess to po­lice records and her per­son­al de­vices.

Though un­able to walk and suf­fer­ing from paral­y­sis, the moth­er of one is adamant that she will not give up un­til the world knows the truth about the Jan­u­ary 20 fa­tal shoot­ing in­ci­dent in St Au­gus­tine that claimed the life of her com­mon-law hus­band Joshua Sama­roo.

In a state­ment to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, via her at­tor­ney Fay­ola Sandy, Sealy con­firmed that she had au­tho­rised coun­sel to ap­ply for a ju­di­cial re­view, “to en­sure that her statu­to­ry rights to trans­paren­cy and law­ful process are re­spect­ed.”

Sandy said she was al­so seek­ing “to pro­tect her rights and se­cure ac­count­abil­i­ty.”

The at­tor­ney al­so con­firmed that her client was pur­su­ing “ap­pro­pri­ate civ­il and pub­lic law reme­dies through the courts.”

Sealy, 24, was shot mul­ti­ple times dur­ing last month’s con­tro­ver­sial in­ci­dent that was cap­tured on CCTV footage.

The paral­ysed moth­er of a five-year-old girl con­tin­ues to main­tain her in­no­cence and that of her de­ceased part­ner.

Re­veal­ing that she has al­so suf­fered men­tal trau­ma at the hands of the po­lice, she ex­plained that al­though she was nei­ther ar­rest­ed nor charged with any of­fence, in the six days im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent, armed and at times masked po­lice of­fi­cers were sta­tioned out­side her room at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope.

With a strict vis­i­tor con­trol pol­i­cy in place, she al­so said her move­ments were con­trolled and her fam­i­ly mem­bers, in­clud­ing her moth­er and sis­ter, were sub­ject­ed to ques­tion­ing and “in­con­sis­tent treat­ment” when at­tempt­ing to see her.

How­ev­er, her at­tor­ney in­sist­ed that there is “no clear le­gal ba­sis for this con­tin­ued guard or su­per­vi­sion”, which was nev­er ex­plained to the fam­i­ly.

Af­ter re­ceiv­ing no an­swers from the au­thor­i­ties by the fourth day, Sealy’s fam­i­ly in­struct­ed Sandy to file a habeas cor­pus ap­pli­ca­tion seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion of the le­gal au­thor­i­ty for her con­tin­ued de­ten­tion and su­per­vi­sion.

Short­ly af­ter, she was dis­charged in­to her moth­er’s care with the clear as­sur­ance that “she was not un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion and that her per­son­al elec­tron­ic de­vices, in­clud­ing her cell phone and tablet, could be col­lect­ed.”

How­ev­er, when Sealy’s moth­er went to the po­lice sta­tion to col­lect the items, she was in­formed that “those de­vices were in­stead re­tained pur­suant to a war­rant ob­tained nine days af­ter the in­ci­dent, notwith­stand­ing re­peat­ed as­sur­ances to coun­sel, that Sealy was not be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed and that no charge was con­tem­plat­ed.”

Sandy in­di­cat­ed that to date, “For­mal writ­ten re­quests seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion and the re­turn of her prop­er­ty have not been ac­knowl­edged or an­swered.”

Mean­while, a re­quest was al­so made un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act for the op­er­a­tional and in­ves­tiga­tive records re­lat­ing to the in­ci­dent.

Ac­cord­ing to Sandy, that, too, was re­fused on the ba­sis of a gen­er­al as­ser­tion of an “on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion” with­out any spe­cif­ic dis­clo­sure.

Twen­ty-one days since the fa­tal in­ci­dent, Sealy and her fam­i­ly have re­mained with­out clear an­swers.

In a state­ment to Sandy im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the in­ci­dent and be­fore any video footage was re­leased to the pub­lic, Sealy stood firm that her ac­count of the in­ci­dent has re­mained con­sis­tent and has al­so been sub­stan­ti­at­ed by pub­licly-re­leased video ev­i­dence.

Though up­set and an­gry over the unau­tho­rised pub­li­ca­tion of her wit­ness state­ment in an­oth­er sec­tion of the Press over the week­end, Sealy ac­knowl­edged the out­pour­ing of con­cern and sup­port she has re­ceived from the pub­lic.

While in­di­cat­ing that she has been co­op­er­at­ing ful­ly with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty, and the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau, she said, “I will con­tin­ue to en­gage through for­mal le­gal chan­nels.”

Sandy, mean­while, ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment over how the mat­ter has been un­fold­ing.

“As a civil­ian, my in­ter­ac­tions with many po­lice of­fi­cers over the years have been pos­i­tive and marked by in­tegri­ty,” she said.

How­ev­er, as a crim­i­nal de­fence at­tor­ney, she said she had al­so seen oc­ca­sions where the safe­guards of ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy were es­sen­tial.

“Where of­fi­cial ac­counts are con­tra­dict­ed by ob­jec­tive video ev­i­dence, it is ap­pro­pri­ate to re­ly on the ev­i­dence and to in­sist on clear, law­ful ex­pla­na­tions. In these cir­cum­stances, our con­fi­dence must rest with the facts.”

“We ac­knowl­edge the on­go­ing as­sis­tance of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty and the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau, both of whom have act­ed with pro­fes­sion­al­ism and in­tegri­ty in their en­gage­ment with Ms Sealy.”

She, too, called for an­swers and de­mand­ed, “Giv­en the se­ri­ous­ness of this in­ci­dent, the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties must now pro­vide clear and law­ful ex­pla­na­tions for their ac­tions, in­clud­ing whether the force used was con­sis­tent with es­tab­lished pol­i­cy and pro­ce­dure.”

Sandy said as Sealy fo­cused on her re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and re­cov­ery, and the well-be­ing of her young child, she was sur­round­ed by a team of per­sons who would safe­guard her wel­fare and en­sure the truth pre­vailed.