Rhon­dor Dowlat

Scores of youths in sev­er­al hotspot com­mu­ni­ties in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day re­joiced over the pass­ing of po­lice in­spec­tor Sa­hadeo Singh.Sea Lots res­i­dents, who held a block par­ty, ded­i­cat­ed it to Singh's death.Singh, 58, who was as­signed to Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion, suc­cumbed to a stroke on Sun­day while at Med­ical As­so­ciates, Ch­agua­nas.

He was de­scribed as an ex­cep­tion­al of­fi­cer by act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams, and an ace crime fight­er by all of his col­leagues.How­ev­er, while the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) was plunged in­to deep mourn­ing over Singh's death, there was a vast con­trast among the res­i­dents of Sea Lots, Beetham Gar­dens and com­min­utes in the Laven­tille hills, in­clud­ing Cana­da and Bev­er­ly Hills, which fell un­der Singh's ju­ris­dic­tion.

Many of them de­scribed Singh as a wicked man, who of­ten came in­to their com­mu­ni­ties armed with a sledge ham­mer and crow bar which he used to break down the doors to their homes dur­ing po­lice raids.Sea Lots res­i­dent, Har­vey Adams, 49, said he was one of the many of Singh's vic­tims."Singh re­al ad­van­tage poor peo­ple. He came to my place and mash it up for no rea­son sev­er­al times. The kind of things Singh did to me per­son­al­ly, he lucky he died such an easy death. Last night (Sun­day) the DJ made an­nounce­ments all night that Singh died. We cel­e­brat­ed his death that he was no longer here to ha­rass us," he added. At Beetham Gar­dens youths there de­scribed Singh as a pest. Beetham res­i­dent Cur­tis Alexan­der, 22, said it is not good when some­one die but did not hes­i­tate to de­scribe Singh as an "out­ta tim­ing po­lice".

"He used to come in Beetham and break up all of our stuff in our house. He did it to me a lot of times. I heard that he had died three times be­fore by bul­lets but now I know that he is sure­ly dead," Alexan­der said. Com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist Ken­neth "Span­ish" Ro­driguez ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to Singh's fam­i­ly and the TTPS."I was held for sev­en days dur­ing the State of Emer­gency but I don't have any bad com­plaints about Singh," he said.While at Bev­er­ly Hills, the youths shared sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments as those of Sea Lots and Beetham. Some claimed that Singh was very close to Dil­lon "Bandy" Skeete who was gunned down on Thurs­day night at Des­per­lie Cres­cent, Laven­tille.They claimed Skeete was one of Singh's in­for­mants. Skeete had been iden­ti­fied as a sus­pect in the mur­der of Lance Cpl Kay­o­de Thomas who was killed in Laven­tille on Ju­ly 29.

More In­for­ma­tion

In 2009, sub­se­quent to a stand-off be­tween res­i­dents of Pic­ton Street and po­lice, res­i­dents praised Singh and his of­fi­cers for keep­ing the area in or­der.Singh, res­i­dents said, was a man who nev­er cursed or ha­rassed any­one. They said he was a man who would come in­to the area and do his job, with­out fear and fail­ure.

The youths of the area had called on Singh, dur­ing that time, to ac­com­pa­ny them to Block Eight so that they could ne­go­ti­ate and end the gang war in the area. They be­lieved in him, as he was al­so well re­spect­ed by all.

TTPS' com­mu­ni­ca­tions of­fi­cer, Joanne Archie, in her im­me­di­ate re­ac­tion to Singh's death on Sun­day, wrote on her Face­book wall: "We have just lost a de­vot­ed and com­mit­ted troop­er. This of­fi­cer was ded­i­cat­ed and loved his job with a pas­sion. You were one of a kind."

On hear­ing the news mes­sages poured in from of­fi­cers who worked with him.A mil­i­tary fu­ner­al ser­vice will be held for him at 9.30 am to­mor­row at 168 Main Road, Ca­paro. The cre­ma­tion will be at the Wa­ter­loo cre­ma­tion site.