SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI & ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

Last week, Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk re­vealed that in 2025, when T&T was in a State of Emer­gency (SoE) from the start to the end of the year, the coun­try had the high­est num­ber of po­lice in­volved killings at 55.

Dur­ing the first SoE, which be­gan on De­cem­ber 30, 2024 and end­ed on April 13, 2025, there were 19 fa­tal shoot­ings, and dur­ing the sec­ond SoE, which be­gan on Ju­ly 18 and end­ed on Jan­u­ary 31, there were 27 fa­tal shoot­ings.

From Jan­u­ary 2014 to De­cem­ber 2025, 505 peo­ple have lost their lives from 406 in­ci­dents of po­lice in­volved killings- 55 have been re­ferred to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions by the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA), and 170 cas­es re­main open.

No Jus­tice for Garth

More than 1,300 days af­ter the fa­tal po­lice shoot­ings of Fabi­an Richards, Isa­iah Roberts and Leonar­do Williams, their fam­i­lies con­tin­ue to be in the dark with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­ing con­duct­ed by the TTPS. Richards, 21, Williams, 17 and Roberts, 17, of Beetham Gar­dens were killed on Ju­ly 2, 2022.

The fam­i­lies of the vic­tims claimed that six men were in a car re­turn­ing home from a par­ty in Diego Mar­tin when they were wrong­ful­ly tar­get­ed and chased, re­sult­ing in the deaths of the trio on In­de­pen­dence Square, Port-of-Spain.

The po­lice claimed the men shot at them, and they re­turned fire.

But the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies con­tin­ue to de­ny this.

The three sur­viv­ing oc­cu­pants in the ve­hi­cles were ar­rest­ed and re­leased with­out charge.

Au­top­sies per­formed on the men showed they were shot from be­hind mul­ti­ple times.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice promised the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies that the fa­tal shoot­ings would be in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

Out­raged by what they de­scribed as un­jus­ti­fied killings, res­i­dents of Beetham Gar­dens and East Port-of-Spain blocked the main route in­to and out of the cap­i­tal city, caus­ing grid­lock traf­fic for sev­er­al hours.

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) con­duct­ed its own in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the fa­tal shoot­ings.

In May of 2023, PCA’s di­rec­tor, David West, had rec­om­mend­ed to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, Roger Gas­pard, that a coro­ner’s in­quest be held in­to the po­lice killings of the men.

Se­nior Sup Neil Bran­don-John was tasked as the po­lice’s lead in­ves­ti­ga­tor for the case.

On the first an­niver­sary of the men’s killings, Bran­don John had told the Sun­day Guardian that his in­ves­ti­ga­tions had been com­plet­ed and he was await­ing doc­u­ments from the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre to sub­mit his file to the DPP.

He said the re­port was very lengthy.

“I don’t want the in­ves­ti­ga­tion to be done halfway.”

Bran­don John al­so plead­ed with the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies to let the in­ves­ti­ga­tions run their course and to ex­er­cise pa­tience.

“Re­gard­less of how it goes, it will go to court, in one way or the oth­er.”

By the end of 2023, Bran­don John promised that the case would be wrapped up.

How­ev­er, in Sep­tem­ber 2024, Bran­don John died from a heart at­tack, leav­ing the griev­ing fam­i­lies in lim­bo.

Since then, 43 months af­ter the killings, Fabi­an’s fa­ther, Garth Richards, said they had been left in the dark re­gard­ing the po­lice’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“It’s 43 months since their killings. Why is every­thing tak­ing so long? It’s go­ing worse than a snail. To me, every­thing has run cold. We are plead­ing for an­swers from the au­thor­i­ties sur­round­ing the killings. We want clo­sure. We want jus­tice to be served.”

Richards said he was grow­ing frus­trat­ed.

From liv­ing a hap­py life, Richards said, there’s con­stant ten­sion in the fam­i­ly.

De­spite seek­ing coun­selling, he said the ab­sence of his son has been rip­ping his heart to pieces.

“I miss his pres­ence…his voice, his walk, and smile.”

Richards said Fabi­an was shot ten times. The bul­lets pierced the back of his head, arms, and back. Part of his face was un­recog­nis­able.

He de­scribed the shoot­ing of his son as “an overkill” by the po­lice.

In a world where time is sup­posed to heal wounds, Richards said the re­cent po­lice killing of Joshua Sama­roo while in his ve­hi­cle, with his hands in the air, brought back fresh mem­o­ries of his son los­ing his life.

“I wouldn’t lie… watch­ing that video, it touched my heart. It made me cry. I could imag­ine what the fam­i­ly is go­ing through.”

Richards said his son was no bad boy and was gain­ful­ly em­ployed.

Fabi­an’s girl­friend was three months preg­nant when he was killed.

“His three-year-old daugh­ter has been grow­ing up fa­ther­less.”

The trio’s killing was one of four fa­tal po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings men­tioned in the Unit­ed States De­part­ment of State’s 2022 Coun­try Re­port on Hu­man Rights Prac­tices.

The re­port stat­ed “there were cred­i­ble re­ports that po­lice com­mit­ted ar­bi­trary or un­law­ful killings” in T&T.

Ker­ron Alex­is: Body cam­eras could have brought jus­tice

On Jan­u­ary 20, po­lice shot 31-year-old Joshua Sama­roo 19 times, killing him and in­jur­ing his com­mon-law wife Ka­ia Sealy, fol­low­ing a re­port­ed high-speed chase in St Au­gus­tine. A video of the in­ci­dent showed Sama­roo had his two hands up, yet po­lice still shot at the ve­hi­cle.

Since then, there has been pub­lic de­bate about body cam­eras be­ing worn by po­lice of­fi­cers. Last week, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin re­vealed that there are about 190 ac­tive body cam­eras be­ing used by of­fi­cers in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

About 20 km away from the dead­ly St Au­gus­tine scene of the Sama­roo shoot­ing, that body-cam is­sue is a re­al, lived ex­pe­ri­ence.

On Rail­way Road, Ch­agua­nas, the street nar­rows quick­ly. Homes sit close. The traf­fic moves through, then falls away.

A minute’s dri­ve in­to Rail­way Road, Ker­ron Alex­is, a 34-year-old farmer, raised his hand sig­nalling to the Sun­day Guardian to stop near his home. A long sur­gi­cal scar ran from his in­ner wrist up his fore­arm, un­der an Adi­das jer­sey.

Alex­is, who was shot dur­ing a po­lice stop near Dass Branch Trace, En­ter­prise Ch­agua­nas, in Oc­to­ber 2023, said a func­tion­ing body-cam­era sys­tem could have changed what hap­pened.

He said the in­ci­dent has left him push­ing for body cam­eras: “If you watch my so­cial me­dia ac­count, you will see I ad­vo­cat­ed for body cams and beg­ging, be­cause I know what I went through.”

Two years ago, he start­ed a change.org pe­ti­tion to man­date of­fi­cers to wear body cam­eras. It has 1,166 ver­i­fied sig­na­tures.

Fol­low­ing his shoot­ing, po­lice re­port­ed they re­cov­ered co­caine, a gun and am­mu­ni­tion from Alex­is’ ve­hi­cle, and the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty be­gan in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the shoot­ing.

Alex­is claimed he put his hands out the win­dow be­fore he was shot.

A po­lice re­port lat­er claimed he point­ed a gun at of­fi­cers as they were speak­ing to him dur­ing the stop.

“Yeah, over 18 times… four in my face, palm of my hands, my side, lose piece of my lungs, my colon, half my stom­ach, a lot of dam­age.”

“Come clos­er, watch this,” he in­vit­ed the Sun­day Guardian to look at a thin scar mark­ing his up­per lip, and a vis­i­bly dis­fig­ured pinky fin­ger bent out of shape.

“Since then, the mat­ter be­fore the court is a slow, slow process….So, it’s a very slow process for me, and it will be for the lat­est sur­vivor.”

A close rel­a­tive washed the last dish in Alex­is’ kitchen, set it down, and lis­tened as he said, “Yes­ter­day was for me, to­day is for Sama­roo, and to­mor­row might be for you.”

Alex­is said he could not watch the Sama­roo CCTV clip to the end.

He stopped it at the mo­ment Sama­roo put his hands out the win­dow be­cause, he claimed, it was ex­act­ly what he did right be­fore he was shot.

“It could re­peat again, in a dif­fer­ent part of Trinidad, same ex­act script, same ex­act sce­nar­ios. Like, this comes like déjà vu.”

With re­gards to the Sama­roo in­ci­dent, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro said the of­fi­cers in­volved would not be sus­pend­ed. But lat­er re­vealed that the of­fi­cers were moved from their polic­ing unit.

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) and the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NATUC) is­sued state­ments cri­tiquing Gue­var­ro.

“No in­di­vid­ual, no of­fice, and no in­sti­tu­tion can be above the law,” NATUC said. “The crim­i­nal law of Trinidad and To­ba­go ap­plies equal­ly to civil­ians and law-en­force­ment of­fi­cers alike.”

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der said there should be laws to reg­u­late the pub­lic shar­ing of in­for­ma­tion af­ter a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing.

“You know what is im­por­tant here? Ev­i­dence. And the po­lice could have brought it out ear­ly, you know. But we re­spect the rule of law. The po­lice re­spect that. The po­lice al­so re­spect that, lis­ten, there’s an in­ves­ti­ga­tion tak­ing place. So we must be cau­tious as to how we put things out in the pub­lic do­main,” he had said.

“Some­thing needs to be done with those who do that in terms of the law. You can­not put things out there, get the pub­lic opin­ion on on­ly what they saw for two min­utes, for a minute and a half, and then draw a con­clu­sion to it. The time has come for that to change. And the per­sons who con­tin­ue to do that, there must be a law to treat with that. So that might be the next an­gle that we’re look­ing at,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to Alexan­der, there are four in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the Sama­roo in­ci­dent- the First Di­vi­sion Of­fi­cer, the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau, Homi­cide and the PCA.

Sama­roo was laid to rest last Fri­day.