An­na-Lisa Paul

As cit­i­zens went to sleep on Tues­day night un­easy and un­sure of what yes­ter­day's dawn would bring, the coun­try ini­tial­ly awoke to a sense of calm and qui­et yes­ter­day. But this did not last for long as res­i­dents from Beetham and Sea Lots joined to­geth­er to stage what was ini­tial­ly called a peace­ful protest in Port-of-Spain. While one at Sea Lots was bro­ken up to an ex­tent, some of them left to go in­to the city where they joined a protest which the po­lice used tear gas to dis­perse.

Ear­li­er yes­ter­day, the move by Sea Lots res­i­dents to march in­to Port-of-Spain around noon was thwart­ed by vig­i­lant po­lice of­fi­cers who warned them that any­one found to be in groups of more than 25 would be breach­ing the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance and would be charged as a re­sult.

Fol­low­ing an hour-long stand-off with of­fi­cers of the Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB) and the Ri­ot Squad at Pi­o­neer Dri­ve - some of the res­i­dents opt­ed to re­turn to their homes and left on foot in groups of 25. How­ev­er, some oth­ers re­mained scat­tered along Pi­o­neer Dri­ve, wait­ing on of­fi­cers to leave the scene.

The con­fronta­tion at Pi­o­neer Dri­ve be­gan when of­fi­cers armed with trans­par­ent ri­ot shields formed a hu­man bar­ri­cade and blocked the road­way pre­vent­ing pro­tes­tors from ad­vanc­ing fur­ther.

A se­nior of­fi­cer used a loud-speak­er to warn the res­i­dents, “Not to­day, go home.”

De­spite this warn­ing, the com­bat-ready of­fi­cers were forced to adopt a mil­i­tary stance as sev­er­al mis­siles were hurled at them from a near­by house. The threat­en­ing move prompt­ed sev­er­al of­fi­cers to search the premis­es while oth­er of­fi­cers moved to in­ter­cept res­i­dents as they emerged from along the Sea Lots wa­ter­front and sought to join those who had been blocked at Pi­o­neer Dri­ve.

In­sist­ing they were not about burn­ing de­bris and block­ing roads as they did on Tues­day, the hun­dreds of young men who were armed with plac­ards claimed while yes­ter­day was about peace and love, it was al­so to protest the trag­ic death of Beetham res­i­dent Or­nel­la Greaves.

Greaves, a 30-year-old moth­er of five who was preg­nant, was among three peo­ple shot around 10 am at Beetham Gar­dens on Tues­day as she record­ed the fiery protests be­ing staged by res­i­dents and oth­er demon­stra­tors in her area. Greaves lat­er died.

Tues­day’s protests were trig­gered as a re­sult of Sat­ur­day’s killing of Joel Ja­cob, Noel Di­a­mond and Is­rael Clin­ton by po­lice in Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, Mor­vant, by po­lice of­fi­cers.

Sev­er­al of the men who spoke with Guardian Me­dia voiced their dis­plea­sure with the cock­roach anal­o­gy used by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith to re­fer to those in the com­mu­ni­ties who were en­gaged in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

Even as yes­ter­day’s scene was un­fold­ing at Sea Lots, else­where in the cap­i­tal - pro­tes­tors from Nel­son Street were march­ing through the streets de­mand­ing jus­tice for all those killed by the po­lice.

As close to 100 peo­ple marched through Port-of-Spain and head­ed for the Red House where Par­lia­ment was in ses­sion, bear­ing plac­ards and chant­i­ng "Hands Up, Don't Shoot," of­fi­cers fired tear gas at the crowd to get them to dis­perse.

As many pulled cloth­ing over their eyes and mouths to pro­tect them­selves, oth­ers di­rect­ly af­fect­ed ran in­to stores as they begged for help and wa­ter to wash their faces. The re­sul­tant ac­tion led to many busi­ness­es clos­ing im­me­di­ate­ly as fears of loot­ing spread.

Mean­while, the on­ly in­di­ca­tors of Tues­day's protests that re­mained in Mor­vant and Laven­tille were piles of burnt-out rub­ble as res­i­dents and sol­diers cleared the streets.

An ear­ly morn­ing at­tempt by demon­stra­tors along the Co­corite Main Road, Diego Mar­tin, to re­sume protest­ing by set­ing fire to rub­ble was quick­ly quelled by of­fi­cers who were able to douse the fire quick­ly and dis­perse the pro­tes­tors.

As Guardian Me­dia drove along the Laven­tille Old Road near Mapp Trace, res­i­dents were hard at work clear­ing the still-smoul­der­ing de­bris that lay across the road­way.

A young man who de­clined to iden­ti­fy him­self said, “We just clean­ing up the road now, every­body have to do a part.”

How­ev­er, he stressed, “We on­ly want­ed our voic­es to be heard, we want jus­tice be­cause they killing out we blacks.”

Point­ing to two jeeps filled with of­fi­cers that drove on­to an emp­ty lot of land be­hind him as he spoke, the res­i­dent claimed, “We have to hope and pray for the best.”

Asked if they in­tend­ed to con­tin­ue with the ac­tions of the pre­vi­ous day, he said no, adding, “Nah, no more protests again. Right now, we clean­ing up the neigh­bor­hood and is peace and love, that’s all we want. We want jus­tice but we not get­ting that but to­day (yes­ter­day) is some­thing dif­fer­ent.”

Be­tween 10.30 am and 11.30 am yes­ter­day, sol­diers were busy re­mov­ing de­bris which had been strewn across in­ter­sec­tions at Dun­can, Duke, Prince and Nel­son Streets on Tues­day.

Al­though equip­ment owned by the T&T De­fence Force was used in the ex­er­cise, the rub­bish was placed in a truck owned by the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion dri­ven by a sol­dier as cor­po­ra­tion work­ers re­mained fear­ful about go­ing in­to cer­tain ar­eas yes­ter­day.