Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

PanTrin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore has crit­i­cised the han­dling of the re­cent con­fronta­tion be­tween po­lice and mem­bers of Sil­ver Stars Steel Or­ches­tra, in­sist­ing that a lack of un­der­stand­ing of steel­band cul­ture con­tributed to the in­ci­dent.

“If you don’t un­der­stand steel­band cul­ture in the land of Trinidad and To­ba­go, then you should not be a po­lice of­fi­cer.”

Ram­sey-Moore made the com­ments at PanTrin­ba­go’s Au­gust Fest – Rhythm and Rise, Pan Pas­sion An­nu­al Church Ser­vice and Bless­ing of the Flags yes­ter­day, as she ad­dressed the fall­out from the Ju­ly 4 con­fronta­tion at the TRIBE band launch at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

Five Sil­ver Stars play­ers were ar­rest­ed fol­low­ing the con­fronta­tion with po­lice af­ter the or­ches­tra con­tin­ued play­ing short­ly af­ter 2 am.

Po­lice sub­se­quent­ly charged the play­ers with ob­scene lan­guage, dis­or­der­ly be­hav­iour and re­sist­ing ar­rest, while one play­er, Aquila Pereira, was al­so charged with as­sault­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer.

The TTPS has said the event li­cence re­quired mu­sic to end at 2 am and al­leged that an of­fi­cer was as­sault­ed dur­ing the in­ter­ven­tion.

Sil­ver Stars, how­ev­er, has de­nied that its mem­bers as­sault­ed po­lice or act­ed de­fi­ant­ly, main­tain­ing that its play­ers were pro­fes­sion­als who were not aware of the per­mit re­stric­tions and that po­lice con­front­ed the mu­si­cians di­rect­ly rather than ap­proach­ing band man­age­ment or event or­gan­is­ers.

Against that back­drop, Ram­sey-Moore ar­gued that steel­bands op­er­ate with­in a high­ly dis­ci­plined struc­ture, with play­ers ac­cus­tomed to fol­low­ing the in­struc­tions of their cap­tains and lead­ers.

“The most dis­ci­plined place that you can find, maybe af­ter the church, is the pa­n­yards,” she said.

“When you walk in­to a pa­n­yard, you walk in­to a safe and sa­cred space.”

Ram­sey-Moore said the re­la­tion­ship be­tween a steel­band cap­tain and play­ers is built around dis­ci­pline and im­me­di­ate obe­di­ence, point­ing to the cus­tom­ary sig­nal used by a cap­tain to stop an or­ches­tra.

“When the cap­tain takes just one stick and knocks that pan, every sin­gle man jack knows that it’s time to be still. It’s time to be silent. It’s time to take mu­sic,” she said.

She said the same dis­ci­pline ap­plies when bands pre­pare to per­form, with play­ers re­ceiv­ing a pep talk and prayers be­fore tak­ing the stage.

“You’re all psy­ched up be­cause you’re about to do a job. You’re about to per­form,” she said.

Ram­sey-Moore ar­gued that mu­si­cians should not be ex­pect­ed to be­come in­volved in dis­putes be­tween pro­mot­ers and au­thor­i­ties while they are fo­cused on per­form­ing.

“I am here to de­liv­er. I am here to per­form. I am on a mis­sion,” she said.

“And if a law has been bro­ken, that is not about me. I am here to per­form. You go to the pro­mot­er, and then the pro­mot­er comes to my leader.”

She said greater un­der­stand­ing of steel­band pro­to­col could have pre­vent­ed the con­fronta­tion.

She al­so ex­pressed con­cern over the treat­ment of the young pan­nists in­volved.

“I nev­er thought that in my life­time, or yours, that we would have wit­nessed that kind of abuse of a group of young peo­ple,” she said.

Ram­sey-Moore ac­knowl­edged that the mat­ter is now be­fore the courts and said the five ac­cused play­ers will con­tin­ue to face the le­gal process.

“They have to go back to court on Thurs­day,” she said, adding that she re­mained con­fi­dent that jus­tice would pre­vail.

Her crit­i­cism, she stressed, was not di­rect­ed at the en­tire Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

“I want to say that the po­lice ser­vice, the mem­bers of the po­lice ser­vice, are our friends,” Ram­sey-Moore said.