Alyssa Phillip, one of the ac­tivists who led demon­stra­tions fol­low­ing the po­lice killing of Joshua Sama­roo and the wound­ing of his com­mon-law wife, Ka­ia Sealy, in Jan­u­ary, says she is not op­ti­mistic that any­one will be held ac­count­able if wrong­do­ing is found.

On Tues­day, it was re­port­ed that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Sama­roo’s killing had been com­plet­ed.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia dur­ing the week­ly TTPS me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, po­lice pub­lic in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer ASP Owie Rus­sell said in­ves­ti­ga­tors are await­ing a re­port from the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre.

He ex­plained that once the doc­u­ment is re­ceived, the case file will be re­sub­mit­ted to the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) for in­struc­tions on whether any charges should be laid.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Phillip—who has staged eight demon­stra­tions at po­lice sta­tions across Trinidad and To­ba­go since Sama­roo’s death—said she lacks con­fi­dence in the process.

“I am con­fi­dent in my God, and He will work every­thing out for good—that is where my con­fi­dence lies. I have no con­fi­dence in us; from the start, they haven’t shown much promise,” she said.

Re­spond­ing to com­ments by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro re­gard­ing re­stric­tions on protests dur­ing the SoE, Phillip ar­gued that per­mis­sion is not re­quired for sta­tion­ary demon­stra­tions.

“I sent emails to the Of­fice of Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions on March 20—that is five days be­fore the protest. Un­der Sec­tion 109 of the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act, you are re­quired to no­ti­fy them at least 48 hours be­fore­hand. You don’t need per­mis­sion, even dur­ing the SoE. You need per­mis­sion for a march, but not for the peace­ful stand­still protests we have been hold­ing,” she said.

Phillip ac­knowl­edged that the demon­stra­tions at po­lice sta­tions have not drawn large crowds but said they re­main im­por­tant in show­ing sup­port for Sama­roo’s fam­i­ly and en­sur­ing the in­ci­dent is not for­got­ten.

She added that Sealy is still us­ing a wheel­chair and has not yet be­gun phys­i­cal ther­a­py, as she con­tin­ues to be in and out of hos­pi­tal re­ceiv­ing treat­ment. —Shane Su­perville