Sascha Wil­son

There was chaos in sev­er­al ar­eas from Fyz­abad to Pa­lo Seco Tues­day morn­ing, as a se­ries of fiery protests erupt­ed through­out those com­mu­ni­ties.

From as ear­ly as 2 am, res­i­dents blocked lo­ca­tions along the SS Erin Main Road, Siparia Old Road and Guapo Fyz­abad Main Road, as they com­plained about sev­er­al is­sues, in­clud­ing bad roads, high fu­el, food prices and un­em­ploy­ment.

As tem­pers flared in Pa­lo Seco, at least one res­i­dent com­plained about be­ing pep­per sprayed and tased by the po­lice, while an­oth­er res­i­dent was ar­rest­ed in Pa­lo Seco.

Mean­while, Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Annabelle Bras­nell con­firmed that dur­ing the protests, fall­en trees ripped down elec­tri­cal lines in Fyz­abad, cut­ting off sup­ply to some cus­tomers. How­ev­er, a T&TEC crew re­spond­ed quick­ly, restor­ing elec­tric­i­ty to af­fect­ed res­i­dents.

Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um al­so sent out a bul­letin ad­vis­ing its staff about the protest ac­tion re­sult­ing in sig­nif­i­cant traf­fic dis­rup­tions and that they should ex­er­cise cau­tion.

One res­i­dent, who gave his name as John Boy, said they have had enough and were now tak­ing a stand.

He com­plained, “You see gas prices, that is what we want to see go down. Food prices, when you go in the gro­cery it hard for the chil­dren. It have big pot­hole, no­body do­ing noth­ing. Who deal­ing with Works and Trans­port, the min­is­ter and thing, we want to see what go­ing on with that.”

He called on cit­i­zens from across the coun­try to join in their protest.

“We look­ing to form a uni­ty among Trinidad and To­ba­go and let we stand up be­cause the Gov­ern­ment, they not do­ing noth­ing for we and it is not now. It is from long time. So let we deal with the sit­u­a­tion please,” he urged.

Mean­while, Pa­lo Seco res­i­dent An­dre Alex­is claimed dur­ing a con­fronta­tion with the po­lice, he was pep­per sprayed and tazed.

He said, “He pull me while I was in the van, he pull me out the van. I hear a man say shoot him boy, as he say shoot, I get some­thing hit me bam I fall down on the ground.”

He said oth­er res­i­dents came run­ning while he was “beat­ing up on the ground.” While the of­fi­cers were deal­ing with those res­i­dents, he said he ran in­to some bush­es where he hid.

“Re­mem­ber I hear a man say shoot him and some­thing hit me. I tell my­self is bul­let. They pull gun for the vil­lagers, mak­ing them know to go from there,” he com­plained.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Trevor Toorie, said the ac­tion could have been avoid­ed if the au­thor­i­ties had re­paired the roads. He com­plained that the roads from Pa­lo to Erin and San­ta Flo­ra to Moru­ga are de­plorable.

“All them youths not get­ting work, they not get­ting noth­ing down here,” he lament­ed.

Up to Tues­day evening, a 39-year-old welder of Pa­lo Seco was still in po­lice cus­tody. He was ex­pect­ed to be charged with ob­struct­ing the po­lice and re­sist­ing ar­rest.