Jensen La Vende

Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) coun­cil­lor Ja­son Alexan­der yes­ter­day called for se­cu­ri­ty guards who work in Car­ni­val bands to un­der­go prop­er train­ing, af­ter he was beat­en by guards from the band Yu­ma on Mon­day evening.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, Alexan­der said he was speak­ing with his at­tor­ney on the best way for­ward fol­low­ing the beat­ing, part of which was record­ed and post­ed on so­cial net­work sites yes­ter­day.

The 49-sec­ond clip, which sparked out­rage on­line, showed Alexan­der be­ing kicked, cuffed, slapped and beat­en with a ba­ton by male se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers and one fe­male, all dressed in black.

Alexan­der said around 5.30 pm he was at Tay­lor Street, Wood­brook, where he had met up with friends who were play­ing in Yu­ma. Alexan­der, who was play­ing with Is­land Peo­ple, said he was told to leave the band by se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers.

He said he turned to tell his friends he was leav­ing, but be­fore he could do so he was ac­cost­ed by the guards, who shoved him out of the band.

Alexan­der said one of his fe­male friends at­tempt­ed to in­ter­vene on his be­half, but she was cuffed in the face by a male se­cu­ri­ty guard, while an­oth­er of his friends was shoved and an­oth­er slapped–de­spite the fact that they were all le­git­i­mate Yu­ma band mem­bers.

Af­ter the bru­tal at­tack he and his friends were all chased away from the band.

"It could have been any­one, for­get the ti­tle and what­ev­er, but those guards need train­ing. Right now I am con­sid­er­ing my op­tions and I am re­ceiv­ing ad­vice from my lawyers," Alexan­der, who suf­fered in­juries to his back, el­bow and oth­er parts of his body, told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, adding that he had al­ready re­port­ed the in­ci­dent to the Wood­brook Po­lice Sta­tion and would be meet­ing with the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly and oth­er Car­ni­val stake­hold­ers.

One of the three Cana­di­an na­tion­als in­volved in the in­ci­dent, Nzu­na­ki Tuitt, 35, said she would be tak­ing the mat­ter to the Cana­di­an Em­bassy to­day along with com­pa­tri­ot Jenice Park­er, 23.

Tuitt said she want­ed all her mon­ey back as she did not have a true Yu­ma ex­pe­ri­ence and was will­ing to give back the cos­tume if nec­es­sary.

"The video was just the rem­nant of what hap­pened. Ja­son was al­ready out­side the band and he saw that they slapped me and he came back and they beat him. They bul­lied him," an up­set Tuitt said.

"I was thrown out be­cause I told them they didn't need to push him and then when I start­ed to mouth off on them a man slapped me and my friend came to my aid and she was cuffed in the mouth."

Tuitt said some­one needs to be charged for as­sault­ing them and al­so crit­i­cised po­lice of­fi­cers along the band route who, in­stead of tak­ing the ini­tial re­port, told the women to go to the Wood­brook Po­lice Sta­tion.

She said the use of force by the guards was un­called for, as Alexan­der had al­ready left the band.

She says she was lat­er told that the guards in­volved were fired, but she hopes the band's man­age­ment goes a step fur­ther and in­forms the po­lice of those who may have been re­spon­si­ble for the at­tacks.