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Friday, July 11, 2025

A glaring criminal justice failure

by

419 days ago
20240518

Saman­tha Isaacs did every­thing she was sup­posed to do un­der the law to get pro­tec­tion from her ex-boyfriend, but this coun­try’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem failed her.

She had been sub­ject­ed to months of stalk­ing and threats by her abu­sive, jeal­ous and pos­ses­sive for­mer part­ner, Kahriym Gar­cia. She had made nu­mer­ous re­ports to the po­lice and even tried to get a pro­tec­tion or­der.

Gar­cia had been phys­i­cal­ly and ver­bal­ly abu­sive and af­ter she end­ed the re­la­tion­ship, he threat­ened to kill her, throw acid in her face, and even said he would stick her with an Aids-in­fect­ed nee­dle. 

How­ev­er, all Isaacs’ at­tempts to get pro­tec­tion from her abuser as pre­scribed un­der the law were fu­tile. She was ig­nored by the po­lice and re­fused a pro­tec­tion or­der by a mag­is­trate.

Six years ago, on De­cem­ber 16, 2017, Gar­cia made good on his threats and shot her sev­er­al times then left her to die on a road­way in Care­nage. Hours lat­er, he took his own life.

These har­row­ing de­tails were re­count­ed in a law­suit filed by Isaacs’ moth­er, Tot Lamp­kin, against the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al over the mur­der of her daugh­ter.

At the time of her death, Isaacs, a moth­er of one, was pur­su­ing a de­gree in bio­chem­istry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine. But her ef­forts to seek a brighter fu­ture for her­self and her young son end­ed vi­o­lent­ly be­cause the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem fell short of its re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to her by not re­spond­ing to her many ap­peals for help.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, there are many oth­er cas­es like Isaacs’ in this coun­try, and that makes the 110-page judg­ment de­liv­ered by High Court Judge Robin Mo­hammed so sig­nif­i­cant in bring­ing at­ten­tion to glar­ing de­fi­cien­cies in the way do­mes­tic vi­o­lence mat­ters are han­dled.

In a land­mark rul­ing hand­ed down ear­li­er this week, Jus­tice Mo­hammed held that the rights of Isaacs, her moth­er and young son were in­fringed by the in­ac­tion of the po­lice and the ju­di­cia­ry.

The onus is now on the state to do right by the count­less women and girls who have suf­fered and died be­cause of the egre­gious fail­ures of its agents and ser­vants and im­prove how do­mes­tic vi­o­lence cas­es are han­dled.

The court’s rul­ing re­in­forces a UN Women study on gen­der-based vi­o­lence in T&T, which found that many women feel they have nowhere to turn to be safe be­cause they have ex­pe­ri­enced mul­ti­ple in­ter­ven­tion fail­ures with so­cial ser­vices, the po­lice and the jus­tice sys­tem. 

There have been im­prove­ments since Isaacs’ mur­der. In 2020, the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Act was amend­ed to ex­pand key pro­tec­tions and the cat­e­gories of peo­ple who can ap­ply for pro­tec­tion or­ders and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) launched its Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence Unit (GB­VU), which fo­cus­es heav­i­ly on do­mes­tic vi­o­lence cas­es and breach­es of re­strain­ing or­ders.

These ini­tia­tives are aimed at en­sur­ing a high­er de­gree of sen­si­tiv­i­ty, con­fi­den­tial­i­ty and trust in the way such cas­es are han­dled.

But there are still too many in­stances where vic­tims and their fam­i­lies claim po­lice of­fi­cers are ei­ther tardy in re­spond­ing to their com­plaints, or ig­nore them al­to­geth­er. There are al­so lin­ger­ing con­cerns about the way pro­tec­tion or­ders are han­dled.

How­ev­er, if this rul­ing paves the way for the po­lice and of­fi­cers of the court to en­force the laws with dis­patch, shield­ing vic­tims from per­pe­tra­tors and sav­ing lives, Saman­tha Isaacs’ bru­tal and un­time­ly death would not have been in vain.


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