Two pro­test­ers and a so­cial me­dia per­son­al­i­ty, who were ar­rest­ed by po­lice on Wednes­day dur­ing a demon­stra­tion near the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), were re­leased on own bail last night, af­ter be­ing charged in con­nec­tion with their con­duct dur­ing the ac­tiv­i­ty.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­fend­ed the ac­tions of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in shut­ting down a protest out­side the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions on Wednes­day, warn­ing that at­tempts to in­tim­i­date pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al of­fi­cials “will not be tol­er­at­ed” dur­ing the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE).

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to end the State of Emer­gency, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of sup­press­ing de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ex­pres­sion while dis­miss­ing pub­lic out­rage over the killing of Joshua Sama­roo in a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing in Jan­u­ary.

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day has crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for her com­ments re­gard­ing Wednes­day’s protest in Port-of-Spain, ac­cus­ing the Prime Min­is­ter of re­spond­ing with “con­tempt” in­stead of ad­dress­ing cit­i­zens’ con­cerns.

Strate­gic se­cu­ri­ty con­sul­tant Dr Garvin Heer­ah is urg­ing na­tion­al lead­ers to “em­pathise first, leg­is­late sec­ond,” amid grow­ing de­bate over the Gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse to Wednes­day’s protest linked to the po­lice-is­sued war­rants for the ar­rest of Ka­ia Sealy over the death of her com­mon-law hus­band Joshua Sama­roo.

While Ka­ia Sealy re­mains out of the coun­try seek­ing med­ical treat­ment, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) says it is not la­belling her a fugi­tive.

Crim­i­nal at­tor­ney Fa­reed Ali says there is “ab­solute­ly noth­ing wrong” with Ka­ia Sealy seek­ing ad­di­tion­al time to re­turn to Trinidad and To­ba­go as she con­tin­ues med­ical treat­ment abroad fol­low­ing in­juries sus­tained in a shoot­ing in­ci­dent.

As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice (ASP) Owie Rus­sell has de­fend­ed the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) re­sponse to Wednes­day’s protest-re­lat­ed ar­rests, say­ing of­fi­cers act­ed with­in es­tab­lished pro­ce­dures and un­der ex­ist­ing le­gal frame­works.

Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny chair­man Nyree Al­fon­so has re­signed with im­me­di­ate ef­fect, end­ing what she de­scribed as a “very re­ward­ing” but de­mand­ing tenure at the state-owned fu­el com­pa­ny, which is un­der Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (TPHL).

A Diego Mar­tin cou­ple at the cen­tre of body cam­era footage show­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer dis­charg­ing her weapon dur­ing a traf­fic stop has been charged, while se­nior of­fi­cers say an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the shoot­ing re­mains on­go­ing.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) says it sup­ports the use of body cam­eras, as Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP) Ju­nior Ben­jamin has con­firmed that steps are now be­ing tak­en to in­tro­duce the tech­nol­o­gy in­to ser­vice.

Ro­man Catholic Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don has warned that ex­tra-ju­di­cial killings point to a so­ci­ety that has “gone rogue,” while al­so stress­ing the need to prop­er­ly de­fine what con­sti­tutes an ex­tra-ju­di­cial killing.