Sascha Wil­son

Video footage of the po­lice-re­lat­ed shoot­ing in South Oropouche does not ap­pear to show that Coast Guard mem­ber Ely Goodridge was armed when he was shot by the po­lice on Tues­day. A se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer al­so con­firmed that in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­ceived no re­port of Goodridge be­ing armed.

This, how­ev­er, con­flicts with a me­dia re­lease from the Po­lice Ser­vice hours af­ter the in­ci­dent oc­curred, which stat­ed that Goodridge at­tacked the po­lice of­fi­cers with a cut­lass. The in­ci­dent oc­curred at Berridge Trace, South Oropouche when of­fi­cers of the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion and a bailiff went to the prop­er­ty to ef­fect an evic­tion based on a High Court or­der.

Guardian Me­dia al­so ob­tained a po­lice re­port that made no men­tion of Goodridge be­ing armed. The re­port stat­ed that the evic­tion team was ap­proached by Goodridge and two oth­er men as they about to com­mence de­mo­li­tion and were block­ing the equip­ment, threat­en­ing work­ers and pro­vok­ing the po­lice.

The re­port stat­ed that Goodridge held one of the of­fi­cers in a head­lock and be­gan cuff­ing him to his head be­fore push­ing him down a hill. The re­port stat­ed that when the oth­er of­fi­cers went to their col­league’s as­sis­tance, one of the men pushed an of­fi­cer from be­hind and grabbed at his firearm which was slung to the front of his body.

The gun, the re­port stat­ed, then ac­ci­den­tal­ly dis­charged strik­ing him in the back area. Two of the of­fi­cers sought med­ical treat­ment for soft tis­sue in­juries and were dis­charged.

The three min­utes and 48-sec­ond video clip shows a con­fronta­tion with civil­ians, in­clud­ing Goodridge, and po­lice of­fi­cers wear­ing masks by a gal­vanise shed. The cam­era moves away from the group for a few sec­onds and then it re­turns to the shed where Goodridge is seen shov­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer.

As the oth­er of­fi­cers in­ter­vene, Goodridge scuf­fles with them and falls on a log. A loud noise is heard as Goodridge tum­bles down the hill.

The video, how­ev­er, al­so con­tra­dicts the Goodridge’s rel­a­tive’s ver­sion of the in­ci­dent, as Goodridge’s broth­er Vaughn had claimed they asked the po­lice for per­mis­sion to dis­man­tle their shed in­stead of them de­mol­ish­ing it.

He had claimed that a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer pushed his part­ner and he fell down a hill. He said when Goodridge re­turned af­ter help­ing their part­ner, the po­lice of­fi­cer who shot him stamped him on his chest. He said his broth­er stum­bled on a log and fell back on a po­lice of­fi­cer and they rolled down the hill.

Vaughn said he was run­ning to his broth­er’s aid but he fell and then heard a gun­shot. The five-acre prop­er­ty where the in­ci­dent oc­curred has been the sub­ject of a court bat­tle be­tween the Goodridge fam­i­ly and a com­pa­ny for sev­er­al years.

Goodridge is still ward­ed at the hos­pi­tal in a sta­ble con­di­tion. The TTPS, how­ev­er, has launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent.