An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

More chaos erupt­ed in Sea Lots yes­ter­day as ten­sions es­ca­lat­ed, with res­i­dents of Pi­o­neer Dri­ve claim­ing they were fired up­on by po­lice of­fi­cers while try­ing to erect a bar­ri­cade for pro­tec­tion against peo­ple liv­ing on Pro­duc­tion Dri­ve.

In­sist­ing that rogue of­fi­cers were act­ing on the or­ders of crim­i­nal el­e­ments liv­ing in Sea Lots East, res­i­dents of Sea Lots West claimed that of­fi­cers in an un­marked ve­hi­cle were re­spon­si­ble for fu­elling the on­go­ing com­mu­ni­ty ri­val­ry.

One of the men, forced to scam­per in­to a near­by house while shout­ing for res­i­dents to grab their chil­dren said, “All we were do­ing is putting up a wall to keep our­selves safe from over there.”

Point­ing to Sea Lots East, he added, “Next thing we know, the po­lice start shoot­ing be­hind us for no rea­son. There were chil­dren there. We were dig­ging a hole to run the fence, and the po­lice start­ed shoot­ing be­hind us just like that. Peo­ple just start­ed to run. Next thing, we know, is po­lice break­ing down doors over here (Sea Lots West) and search­ing peo­ple’s hous­es.”

He and sev­er­al oth­ers re­peat­ed­ly asked the of­fi­cers what they were search­ing for, but the law­men of­fered no an­swers.

They claimed there were po­lice of­fi­cers linked to gang-re­lat­ed el­e­ments re­sid­ing in Sea Lots East and this was just an­oth­er at­tempt to get rid of them. Many of the res­i­dents de­clined to speak on the record for fear of re­tal­i­a­tion.

The res­i­dents point­ed to the par­ty search­ing the home of a fe­male res­i­dent, who was present, and whose front door was bro­ken with a sledge­ham­mer.

On­look­ers claimed, “They picked up re­ceipts in the woman’s place ... they broke up things and went, she wasn’t even here.”

An­gry over the vi­o­la­tion of their prop­er­ties and with­out any clear an­swers from the au­thor­i­ties, res­i­dents from Sea Lots West cried as they said the com­mu­ni­ty ri­val­ry was on­ly con­tin­u­ing to es­ca­late.

The an­gry res­i­dents chal­lenged of­fi­cers from the In­ter-Agency Task Force as they walked through the com­mu­ni­ty, urg­ing them to go over to Sea Lots East and re­trieve the spent shells.

One woman said, “The boys were putting up a fenc­ing by the riv­er when they heard gun­shots from over the riv­er from an un­marked white four-by-four, and with that, when every­body ran out, it was be­cause the po­lice start­ed pelt­ing in, com­ing over here, al­most hit­ting chil­dren in the road and cussing peo­ple stink.”

Asked how they knew it was po­lice of­fi­cers in the un­marked van, many of those present said they were fa­mil­iar with the ve­hi­cle and some of the of­fi­cers, so they could iden­ti­fy them.

They warned re­peat­ed­ly, “There’s on­ly so much we could take.”

A young man who al­so re­fused to speak on the record said the com­mu­ni­ty ri­val­ry had wors­ened to the point where the res­i­dents of Sea Lots West were un­able to open­ly mourn their dead rel­a­tives.

He lament­ed, “Imag­ine, we’re hav­ing a wake and they’re shoot­ing up. We can’t cry, we can’t mourn. We just have to stay qui­et and hurt in­side.”

A young woman, nurs­ing her months-old ba­by, lis­tened in­tent­ly and added, “There was an in­ci­dent some time ago when a boy from over there came over here, and when he went back, a gang of 15 men beat him.”

Shout­ing the usu­al re­frain of “you’re too wicked,” at the po­lice of­fi­cers, an­oth­er el­der­ly fe­male said, “We want peace but still this dra­ma just keeps hap­pen­ing.”

An­oth­er young boy added, “They’re al­ways send­ing threats. Any time you make any com­plaint, they say, ‘We’ll kill your fam­i­ly,’ so right through, we have to take that and stay qui­et. Nah, we’ve had enough. We have to stand up for our­selves as the po­lice aren’t do­ing it. We’re fed up, boy, we’re re­al­ly fed up.”

As a fa­ther of four, one man said, “I don’t want them to live and have to grow up in this again, boy. I’d rather die than live like this again. I’d rather die. How much can we take again?”

Cops in­ten­si­fy pa­trol in the area; say they will not con­done re­tal­ia­to­ry ac­tion

Con­firm­ing the po­lice had in­ten­si­fied pa­trols through­out the Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty, se­nior of­fi­cials said they had in­creased op­er­a­tions in a bid to de­ter crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

The of­fi­cials said they were aware of the com­mu­ni­ty ri­val­ry and had im­ple­ment­ed mea­sures to try and ar­rest the sit­u­a­tion.

Asked to re­spond to yes­ter­day’s re­port that the po­lice were re­spon­si­ble for shoot­ing at res­i­dents in Sea Lots West, one of­fi­cer was un­able to con­firm or de­ny this.

As for the claims that rogue of­fi­cers were linked to al­leged gang­sters at Sea Lots East, the of­fi­cers ad­vised res­i­dents that they could lodge a re­port with the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty or vis­it the Po­lice Com­plaints Di­vi­sion to re­port the in­for­ma­tion. Urg­ing peo­ple to come for­ward with such re­ports, the of­fi­cials sought to re­as­sure res­i­dents that they would be thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

While they con­tin­ue to meet with fac­tions from Sea Lots East, Sea Lots West, and Sea Lots Cen­tral, the po­lice stressed they would not tol­er­ate any in­frac­tions of the law and would act im­me­di­ate­ly and de­ci­sive­ly.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, North West­ern Di­vi­sion Garvin Sean Hen­ry ad­vised, “The po­lice will not, un­der any cir­cum­stance, tol­er­ate re­tal­ia­to­ry ac­tion.”

He con­firmed, “The po­lice are quite ca­pa­ble of han­dling any sit­u­a­tion that may arise in the Sea Lots area, in­clud­ing that of com­mu­ni­ty ri­val­ry. And we will not con­done, un­der any cir­cum­stance, vig­i­lante ac­tion.”

‘Women must be cen­tral to peace ef­forts in com­mu­ni­ties’

Mean­while, Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Ex­pert at the In­sti­tute of Gen­der and De­vel­op­ment Stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of West In­dies Dr Asha Kam­bon says women must be in­clud­ed in con­ver­sa­tions con­cern­ing the fos­ter­ing of peace in com­mu­ni­ties.

She not­ed that the ini­tial call for in­ter­ven­tion in the Sea Lots un­rest came from women in the area.

She said so while ad­dress­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day march at Wood­ford Square yes­ter­day. “It is the women of Sea Lots who took it up­on them­selves to call for ac­tion for peace. Let’s say it this way: there’s more that can be done to fa­cil­i­tate that peace than maybe some of the sug­ges­tions we heard in the news. One is that the women them­selves must be cen­tral to the dis­cus­sion.”

Kam­bon added, "We can­not have a dis­cus­sion about women's peace where you ex­clude them! You talk to oth­ers who you think have some con­trol over the cri­sis. They may have some in­flu­ence and con­trol over the cri­sis, but we talk about women's agency. The women have agency. They took it up­on them­selves to march down to the po­lice head­quar­ters and say, 'We want peace.' How can you ex­clude them from the dis­cus­sion of peace in their own com­mu­ni­ties? What that tells me is that those sis­ters need our sup­port more than ever."–Pe­ter Christo­pher