Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

The griev­ing fa­ther of 31-year-old Joshua Sama­roo, who was killed in a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing in St Au­gus­tine last week, is re­ject­ing Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der’s sug­ges­tion that laws may be need­ed to lim­it the post­ing of po­lice videos on so­cial me­dia.

Christo­pher Sama­roo said any at­tempt to re­strict such footage would on­ly deep­en pub­lic mis­trust and shield wrong­do­ing.

“I think the op­po­site,” Sama­roo told re­porters on Wednes­day. “Videos should be shown so peo­ple can see the truth of what is tak­ing place.”

His com­ments came hours af­ter Min­is­ter Alexan­der, speak­ing out­side his con­stituen­cy of­fice, warned that pub­lic dis­sem­i­na­tion of video clips could in­ter­fere with in­ves­ti­ga­tions and mis­lead pub­lic opin­ion.

“The po­lice al­so re­spect that there is an in­ves­ti­ga­tion tak­ing place, and we must be cau­tious as to how we put things out in the pub­lic do­main,” Alexan­der said. “You can­not put things out there, get pub­lic opin­ion on on­ly what they saw for two min­utes or a minute and a half, and then draw con­clu­sions.”

Alexan­der added that leg­is­la­tion may be need­ed to ad­dress the is­sue. “The time has come for that to change, and the per­sons who con­tin­ue to do that, there must be law to treat with that. So that may be the next an­gle that we are look­ing at,” he said.

In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Sama­roo said such rea­son­ing ig­nores a deep­er prob­lem.

“Right now in this coun­try, every­thing is be­ing cov­ered up,” he said. “The po­lice are cov­er­ing up a lot of oth­er in­ci­dents. This in­ci­dent has brought light to the pub­lic, and to the world at large.”

Vis­i­bly emo­tion­al, Sama­roo chal­lenged the min­is­ter to re­lease any footage he may have of the dead­ly en­counter.

“Pro­duce the videos,” he said. “I have no prob­lem. But what I saw in this fi­nal video was a slaugh­ter of two in­no­cent peo­ple.”

Sama­roo ar­gued that trans­paren­cy, not re­stric­tion, is crit­i­cal, es­pe­cial­ly as fam­i­lies con­tin­ue to com­plain about fa­tal po­lice en­coun­ters that re­ceive lit­tle at­ten­tion.

“We need pre­ven­tion and an open place where the pub­lic can see what the po­lice are do­ing,” he said. “Too many in­no­cent peo­ple are be­ing killed, and you’re not hear­ing about it.”

He al­so claimed that killings in­volv­ing res­i­dents of cer­tain com­mu­ni­ties are of­ten ig­nored.

“If you live in Laven­tille, Mor­vant, or John John, you don’t hear about it. Too many in­no­cent peo­ple. We have crim­i­nals in the po­lice ser­vice go­ing around and killing peo­ple, and you don’t hear about it. This has to stop.”

Sama­roo con­tend­ed that the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty lies with those in au­thor­i­ty.

“The com­mis­sion­er and the min­is­ter have to put a stop to this, or we will put a stop to them,” he said. “Re­mem­ber, we put them in of­fice.”