SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior re­porter

Shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) has rec­om­mend­ed to Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard that a coro­ner’s in­quest be held in­to the po­lice killings of three men on In­de­pen­dence Square last year. PCA di­rec­tor David West told the Sun­day Guardian this fol­lows 11 months of in­tense and ro­bust in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Three friends—Fabi­an Richards, Leonar­do Williams and Isa­iah Roberts—were killed by po­lice on In­de­pen­dence Square on Ju­ly 2, 2022. Au­top­sies per­formed on the Beetham Gar­dens men showed that they were shot from be­hind mul­ti­ple times.

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 for sev­er­al hours. The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice promised the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies that the killings would be in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view, West said af­ter the PCA did its in­ves­ti­ga­tions, “we would have made a rec­om­men­da­tion to the DPP for a coro­ner’s in­quest.”

That rec­om­men­da­tion was made on May 25, 2023. The PCA’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­gan last Ju­ly.

A coro­ner is re­quired to con­duct an in­quest in­to vi­o­lent, sud­den, or sus­pi­cious deaths and to de­ter­mine whether an in­dictable of­fence has been com­mit­ted.

Asked if the PCA is await­ing a re­sponse from the DPP, West re­spond­ed: “I guess so. Yes.”

If an in­quest is held, West said the PCA will be­come an in­ter­est­ed par­ty.

“So, if the coro­ner calls us to say they are ready to start . . . and which they have been do­ing for oth­er mat­ters ... old­er mat­ters, you know, I guess we would be back­logged. It would take some time,” he said.

West said the PCA al­ready had state­ments in hand.

The Sun­day Guardian sent Gas­pard a What­sApp mes­sage ask­ing if he would con­sid­er West’s rec­om­men­da­tions but he did not re­spond.

Fam­i­lies in grief

The news comes as fam­i­ly and friends will gath­er to­day in front of Re­pub­lic Bank, In­de­pen­dence Square, Port-of-Spain, to mark the first an­niver­sary of the fa­tal po­lice shoot­ings of Roberts, 17, Richards, 21, and Williams, 17. They will light can­dles, pray and pay homage to the trio who were killed dur­ing an al­leged con­fronta­tion with the po­lice.

“The pain of los­ing my son Fabi­an will nev­er go away. I will take his killing to my grave,” said a tear­ful Garth Richards.

Through sobs, Richards had to com­fort his wife, Nicole who al­so be­came emo­tion­al. To the Richards, Fabi­an was their pride and joy.

“It has not been easy to cope. At night I cry my­self to sleep know­ing that Fabi­an is nev­er go­ing to come back to us,” Nicole said.

“We can’t erase from our minds the ten bul­lets that pen­e­trat­ed Fabi­an’s head and hands. This was like a dag­ger through our hearts when we saw his bul­let-rid­dled body.”

All they want is swift jus­tice.

“Some­times I ask my­self if we would ever get jus­tice be­cause a year has passed and we are nowhere close to get­ting an­swers. What is the keep back?”

Nicole said Fabi­an left be­hind his girl­friend Saidy John who was two months preg­nant.

“My grand­daugh­ter Soriya came in­to this world in Feb­ru­ary with­out a fa­ther. Fabi­an al­ways want­ed his own fam­i­ly and he did not live to en­joy that. All I could say is that he was gone too soon,” Nicole said.

Lucky Joseph and Leo “Chub­by” Williams, par­ents of Leonar­do, said life for them has been har­row­ing and painful.

“I ain’t ly­ing, it has been a dif­fi­cult and dev­as­tat­ing 12 months,” said Joseph.

“I find the po­lice have been mov­ing way too slow with their in­ves­ti­ga­tions,” Williams in­ter­ject­ed.

Every day the cou­ple lights a can­dle in re­mem­brance of their on­ly son.

“When the po­lice killed Leonar­do, they shat­tered us to pieces. My son picked up five bul­lets in his back and but­tocks. And on top of that, they want to tar­nish his name as if he was a crim­i­nal. Oh gosh, man!”

Williams, 52, de­fend­ed his son, stat­ing that he was a role mod­el in his com­mu­ni­ty.

“Leonar­do grew up in the Beetham Gar­dens Po­lice Youth Club. He was like a men­tor in the com­mu­ni­ty for oth­er youths who looked up to him for guid­ance, sup­port and ad­vice.”

In­sist­ing his son was con­struc­tive and fo­cused, Williams said every week Leonar­do used to ven­ture in­to the Cen­tral Mar­ket with a trol­ley to as­sist cus­tomers who want­ed their goods de­liv­ered to their ve­hi­cles.

“He earned an hon­est liv­ing help­ing peo­ple.”

Williams said be­cause they lived in Beetham Gar­dens the men were brand­ed as bad boys, but he main­tained that a lot of good peo­ple and pos­i­tive things had come out of the com­mu­ni­ty.

Still griev­ing over Leonar­do’s death, Williams said he in­tends to go all out to en­sure that jus­tice is served.

“I know our jus­tice sys­tem is bro­ken. If I don’t get jus­tice from the court. I would leave every­thing in God’s hands.”

Michelle John, grand­moth­er of Isa­iah, al­so felt the po­lice were drag­ging their feet with their probe.

With each pass­ing day, John said, her hopes for jus­tice keep fad­ing. She said her grand­son was due to vis­it his moth­er Atil­lah in New York when he was killed.

“Every­thing turned up­side down and so did our lives. It has not been easy. Dai­ly I ask God to give me the strength to be strong. His death con­tin­ues to weak­en me.”

On the day of Isa­iah’s fu­ner­al, John said her grand­son’s body had to put in a closed cof­fin be­cause his face had been shat­tered by a bul­let. Isa­iah was shot six times in his back and one bul­let pierced his head and ex­it­ed through his face.

“It’s has been a tough year, one filled with grief and agony. We could nev­er move on with our lives.”

She said her fam­i­ly has been ripped apart by the deaths of three men who had so much to live for.

Po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion com­plete

Se­nior Sup Neil Bran­don-John, lead in­ves­ti­ga­tor for the case, told the Sun­day Guardian that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was com­plet­ed two months ago.

“I am just await­ing some doc­u­ments from foren­sics and then the file will be sub­mit­ted to the DPP,” he said.

While em­pathis­ing with the de­ceased fam­i­lies, Bran­don-John plead­ed with them to ex­er­cise some pa­tience.

“I can­not rush foren­sics when they are do­ing their work. So, foren­sics is the on­ly per­son who could tell me when the re­port would be ready. I have re­quest­ed it but I still have to wait for them to give me the re­port.

“That re­port is very lengthy. As I have been telling the fam­i­ly you don’t want the in­ves­ti­ga­tions to be done halfway. And then they are dis­sat­is­fied and say that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion wasn’t prop­er­ly done. They have to be pa­tient . . . and al­low the in­ves­ti­ga­tion to run its course.”

Bran­don-John said the fi­nal rest­ing place for the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is in the court.

“Re­gard­less of how it goes, it will go to court. In one way or the oth­er, it must go to court. But you want it to be prop­er­ly done so that when it goes be­fore the court the best pos­si­ble re­sults can take place.”

He promised that be­fore the end of 2023, the case will be wrapped up.

“It def­i­nite­ly would be,” he said.

Com­plaints against po­lice of­fi­cers (PUT IN BOX)

The PCA’s 2021/2022 re­port showed the au­thor­i­ty re­ceived a record high of 1,028 com­plaints against the po­lice. Of this fig­ure, 569 were as­sessed as com­plaints that fell with­in the PCA’s re­mit while 26 and 45 of those com­plaints were re­ferred to the of­fices of the DPP and Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice re­spec­tive­ly.

The 12-page re­port al­so re­vealed that 410 com­plaints were closed with­out a re­fer­ral and with a de­ci­sion to take no fur­ther ac­tion.

In March, West gave a break­down of the in­creas­ing num­ber of fa­tal po­lice shoot­ings from 2019 to 2022.

Be­tween 2019 and 2022, there were 139 fa­tal po­lice shoot­ings.

The high­est fig­ure record­ed was last year with 43.

For this year, there have been more than a dozen po­lice-in­volved killings.