In light of CCTV footage rais­ing ques­tions about what hap­pened with the po­lice shoot­ing of three men in Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, Mor­vant on Sat­ur­day, at­tor­ney Om Lal­la be­lieves an im­me­di­ate pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tion will serve to quell es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions and guide Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith on the way for­ward.

Lal­la not­ed that the video had cre­at­ed a “huge out­cry.”

“What is re­quired is an im­me­di­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the po­lice shoot­ing. There were two sides of the sto­ry where the po­lice came out and said they act­ed in self-de­fence jus­ti­fi­ably. How­ev­er, there seems to be some un­cer­tain­ty in light of the video and it war­rants an im­me­di­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tion whether it’s by the po­lice or the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty to find out whether or not there was any neg­li­gence sur­round­ing on the part of the po­lice or any oth­er par­ty in­volved.”

He added: “The fact is ap­par­ent­ly there were wit­ness­es around and that is why a swift in­ves­ti­ga­tion would be re­quired. I don’t want to come to a con­clu­sion based on that video footage alone but tak­ing state­ments from the peo­ple who were in the vicin­i­ty to see whether that video is cor­rob­o­rat­ing on any­thing. Say­ing any­thing at this stage would be pre­ma­ture in light of the ten­sion ex­ist­ing in the Mor­vant area.”

Residents of Second Caledonia, Morvant protest the police killing of three men in the area on Saturday.

KERWIN PIERRE

The at­tor­ney ex­plained that the world has changed with re­gard to polic­ing.

“We have seen the re­cent case of the Floyd killing and what it re­sult­ed world­wide in the move­ments and the at­tack that the po­lice have been un­der in the Unit­ed States and the re­spon­si­ble po­si­tion that they have had to take in re-ex­am­in­ing their po­si­tion,” he said.

He added, “It’s not just sim­i­lar in T&T. The world has changed with re­gard to the po­lice’s in­ter­ac­tion with cit­i­zens and any in­ci­dent like this that is not han­dled prop­er­ly has the po­ten­tial to es­ca­late very quick­ly.

“The man­age­ment of it, where the ten­sions are high, the emo­tions are high, peo­ple are un­der re­al ten­sion with COVID, the ex­pe­ri­ence of un­em­ploy­ment, so­ci­ety is in a very tense place the is why it is very crit­i­cal that this needs to be man­aged.”

Asked on calls be­ing made for the sus­pen­sions of the of­fi­cers in­volved, Lal­la replied: “If there is some type of over­whelm­ing ev­i­dence there is jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to sus­pend of­fi­cers and where there is un­cer­tain­ty and a swift in­ves­ti­ga­tion is re­quired then the of­fi­cer should be sus­pend­ed or put on leave and that’s why tim­ing is crit­i­cal in a mat­ter so that how­ev­er quick­ly a pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tion is con­duct­ed it will give guid­ance to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice has to how to move for­ward with this.”

—Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant