JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Monday, July 14, 2025

Scared cop waiting for justice almost 2 years after home was shot up 212 times

by

Joshua Seemungal
1900 days ago
20200502
Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith (Image: TTPS)

Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith (Image: TTPS)

Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Close to two years af­ter po­lice of­fi­cers fired 212 bul­lets at the home of a col­league in San­gre Grande, not a sin­gle per­son has been dis­ci­plined by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, as yet, con­cern­ing the in­ci­dent.

It’s a sto­ry that some may have for­got­ten, but for those seek­ing jus­tice, it’s a mat­ter that they won’t let rest.

Ac­cord­ing to of­fi­cers fa­mil­iar with the Sep­tem­ber 20, 2018 in­ci­dent, there is an al­leged at­tempt by some se­nior East­ern Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers to cov­er up what took place that day.

Con­cerned of­fi­cers, un­will­ing to give their iden­ti­ties for fear of reper­cus­sions, are con­vinced that the life of one of their col­leagues, as it was near­ly two years ago, is still at risk.

They claim that with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion near­ing com­ple­tion, their col­league’s home is be­ing mon­i­tored by cer­tain in­di­vid­u­als, and there have even been at­tempts to blame him for crimes he had noth­ing to do with.

The of­fi­cer has re­ceived threats of in­tim­i­da­tion and ha­rass­ment, they claim. In­di­vid­u­als have been tak­ing pic­tures of his pri­vate ve­hi­cles and he al­leged that a marked po­lice ve­hi­cle was parked out­side of his home and the oc­cu­pants were star­ing at him. He made a re­port on Thurs­day to the TTPS's Com­plaints Di­vi­sion about the of­fi­cers park­ing out­side of his home and in­tim­i­dat­ing him.

In the last two years, apart from the ini­tial re­port to the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty, he al­so made a re­port to the San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion in 2019 about be­ing of­fered a $300,000 bribe to drop the mat­ter.

Al­though un­will­ing to com­ment on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion it­self, the of­fi­cer in­volved, Con­sta­ble Mal­colm Grant (name changed to pro­tect his iden­ti­ty), con­firmed that he is scared for his life.

He said he was hop­ing that the mat­ter will be re­solved be­fore some­thing hap­pens to him.

Mean­while, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith as­sured Guardian Me­dia that the in­ci­dent will be ful­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

"There are some is­sues of con­cern there, and that is why it is be­fore the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau. I’m not say­ing that this is the case in this par­tic­u­lar in­ves­ti­ga­tion, but we will not pro­tect the ac­tions of rogue of­fi­cers," Grif­fith said when asked about the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Constable Malcolm Grant's home in North Eastern Settlementt which was shot up 212 times by his colleagues.

Constable Malcolm Grant's home in North Eastern Settlementt which was shot up 212 times by his colleagues.

Abraham Diaz

THE DATE OF THE IN­CI­DENT: SEP­TEM­BER 20, 2018

Start­ing as ear­ly as 6 am, me­dia re­ports of a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing in North East­ern Set­tle­ment, San­gre Grande, be­gan sur­fac­ing. From the be­gin­ning, it was ev­i­dent that this was not the typ­i­cal po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing.

There were re­ports of three of­fi­cers shot, a war­rant for firearms and am­mu­ni­tion, hun­dreds of bul­lets fired, and the main sus­pect, a spe­cial re­serve po­lice of­fi­cer, who fled the scene armed and was on the loose.

It would not be un­til 12 hours lat­er that the sus­pect would end up in po­lice cus­tody.

THE PO­LICE VER­SION

(The names of the oth­er peo­ple in­volved in the sto­ry were changed for their pro­tec­tion as well.)

As stat­ed in a San­gre Grande sta­tion di­ary re­port tak­en at 11 am on Sep­tem­ber 2o, ten East­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice of­fi­cers went to the house of the ac­cused, Po­lice Con­sta­ble Mal­colm Grant, at 5:40 am.

One po­lice sergeant and nine con­sta­bles armed with sev­en pis­tols, one shot­gun, and two MP5s went, ac­cord­ing to the di­ary re­port, to ex­e­cute a war­rant for firearms and am­mu­ni­tion.

Be­fore that, the of­fi­cers were car­ry­ing out ex­er­cis­es in east Trinidad, as part of one of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith’s first op­er­a­tions, Op­er­a­tion Strike Back.

Sur­round­ing the north­ern side of the house, the of­fi­cers called out the sus­pect by name--Con­sta­ble Mal­colm Grant.

All armed, with no ver­bal re­sponse, and with nois­es com­ing from in­side, three of­fi­cers ap­proached a win­dow.

En­ter­ing through the win­dow, a man of dark com­plex­ion, wear­ing dark-coloured pants, be­gan shoot­ing at them, a re­port from one of the of­fi­cers stat­ed. Falling to the ground, Po­lice Con­sta­ble Cristo­pher said, ac­cord­ing to the di­ary re­port, “I get shot, take cov­er.”

“Po­lice Con­sta­ble Ian and Po­lice Con­sta­ble Sam be­came fear­ful for their lives and the life of Po­lice Con­sta­ble Cristo­pher and they took cov­er, re­turn­ing fire in the di­rec­tion of the said man.

“PC Ian and PC Sam con­tin­ued fir­ing, whilst as­sist­ing PC Cristo­pher, and they all ex­it­ed through the open win­dow to­wards safe­ty,” the re­port said.

They made it out of the house alive.

With back­up ar­riv­ing at the scene, in the pres­ence of at least three se­nior of­fi­cers, the re­port claimed that the po­lice, via a loud-speak­er, called for the sus­pect to sur­ren­der.

The re­port claimed that in­stead of sur­ren­der­ing, how­ev­er, the sus­pect opened fire, send­ing of­fi­cers scram­bling for safe­ty.

“The said man jumped in­to what ap­peared to be a drain mak­ing good his es­cape,” the re­port said.

Fol­low­ing failed at­tempts to lo­cate him, of­fi­cers claimed to have lat­er found a white bag con­tain­ing 9 mm and 5.56 am­mu­ni­tion in the prop­er­ty’s back­yard.

The three of­fi­cers who en­tered the house were all shot dur­ing the in­ci­dent and tak­en to the San­gre Grande Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment.

Two were dis­charged with mi­nor in­juries on the same day, while the oth­er, PC Cristo­pher, was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal’s In­ten­sive Care Unit for fur­ther treat­ment. Los­ing a fin­ger and 30 per cent mo­bil­i­ty in his hand, he was placed on in­jury leave. To this day, he re­mains on leave.

Car­ry­ing out fur­ther search­es in the im­me­di­ate area, of­fi­cers stat­ed, on record, that sev­er­al res­i­dents were in­ter­viewed, but all de­clined to give state­ments. Lat­er on, crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tion per­son­nel ar­rived and processed the scene

In to­tal, ac­cord­ing to the di­ary re­port, 212 bul­lets were fired by the of­fi­cers.

A bullet hole in one of the windows in Constable Malcolm Grant's home.

A bullet hole in one of the windows in Constable Malcolm Grant's home.

Abraham diaz

THE SUS­PECT’S VER­SION

(The fol­low­ing is based on of­fi­cial doc­u­ments made avail­able to Guardian Me­dia re­lat­ed to the events that tran­spired on Sep­tem­ber 20, 2018. They were pro­vid­ed by po­lice sources.)

Ac­cord­ing to an of­fi­cial state­ment made by Of­fi­cer Grant, that day he was awok­en by a phone call, at around 5:50, from his fa­ther.

In a fran­tic tone, his fa­ther, whose house is lo­cat­ed op­po­site of his, at North East­ern Set­tle­ment, San­gre Grande, called with wor­ry­ing news.

“Po­lice are shoot­ing up your house. Where are you?” he asked, ac­cord­ing to the state­ment.

Grant re­spond­ed, “Ari­ma.”

Scram­bling to get ready and find trans­porta­tion to get home, Grant re­ceived an­oth­er call from his fa­ther nine min­utes lat­er. The sec­ond call was even more dis­tress­ing than the first.

“Po­lice of­fi­cers at the scene told me that they were look­ing for you be­cause you would have shot some of­fi­cers be­fore mak­ing good your es­cape in an await­ing ve­hi­cle,” his fa­ther is quot­ed as say­ing in a re­port.

In a state of shock, and with­out a ve­hi­cle, Grant walked to the near­est po­lice sta­tion--the Ari­ma Po­lice Sta­tion. He ar­rived there about 20 min­utes lat­er.

Re­port­ing to a po­lice con­sta­ble, his ar­rival at the sta­tion was booked at 6.40 am.

At 6:55 am, he made a note in the sta­tion di­ary about his lo­ca­tion, as well as the in­for­ma­tion he had re­ceived from his fa­ther.

Twen­ty min­utes lat­er, he re­ceived a call from an As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice ask­ing him where he was. Grant in­formed the ACP that he had spent the night in Ari­ma with a fe­male friend.

If there were doubts, he said, there was a po­lice CCTV cam­era lo­cat­ed at the cor­ner of the named streets, and its footage will sup­port his claims. The ACP said he would check the footage and call back.

At 7:30 am, an of­fi­cer at the sta­tion said he was in­struct­ed by the ACP to have Grant de­tained at the Ari­ma CID of­fice un­til fur­ther no­tice.

At around 10 am, Grant’s at­tor­ney ar­rived, spoke with him and left a short while af­ter.

Fol­low­ing that, at around noon, an of­fi­cer from the Crim­i­nal Gang and In­tel­li­gence Unit ques­tioned him. No one else from the East­ern Di­vi­sion came to ques­tion him and af­ter re­ceiv­ing no ex­pla­na­tion, he was re­leased at 5:30 pm.

‘De­pressed and hu­mil­i­at­ed’ by what he had been ac­cused of, the next day he re­turned to the scene of the shootout.

His blood-stained wash­ing ma­chine, fridge, wardrobe, front and back doors, walls, and even his elec­tri­cal sock­ets had bul­let holes.

In the bath­room, dumped in his toi­let bowl, he found bot­tles of sham­poo, con­di­tion­er, body wash, and lo­tions. In the cup­board, some of his clothes were torn up.

“A heavy feel­ing of sad­ness came over me and I walked out­side at the sight of the ma­li­cious de­struc­tion to my home that was start­ing to have an ad­verse im­pact on me,” Grant said in an Oc­to­ber 1, 2018 state­ment.

“Af­ter I com­posed my­self, I went back in and I start­ed to look around for any item of po­lice kit and case files that I was work­ing on, and I ob­served all of my uni­forms were miss­ing and al­so my bul­let­proof vest,” he added.

Police officers allegedly monitoring Constable Malcolm Grant's new home.

Police officers allegedly monitoring Constable Malcolm Grant's new home.

A SET UP?

De­spite the al­le­ga­tions made against him by mem­bers of the Po­lice Ser­vice’s East­ern Di­vi­sion, since that day, Cor­po­ral Grant has not been charged.

He is al­so still a po­lice of­fi­cer, de­spite of­fi­cers re­port­ing that they found am­mu­ni­tion on his prop­er­ty that day.

In a let­ter to the chair­man of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion in Oc­to­ber 2018, Grant, via his at­tor­ney, claimed it was an at­tempt to set him up.

“As a con­se­quence of the said po­lice of­fi­cers, my home was de­stroyed and is present­ly un­in­hab­it­able,” the let­ter claimed.

“My life was al­so turned up­side down and I have rea­son­able cause to be­lieve that there ex­ists a plot against me by the said po­lice of­fi­cers to fab­ri­cate ev­i­dence against me and kill me,” the let­ter added.

That’s not the on­ly thing about the po­lice of­fi­cers’ ini­tial ver­sion of ac­counts that don’t seem to add up.

Hav­ing vis­it­ed the scene of the in­ci­dent on the day it oc­curred, mul­ti­ple eye­wit­ness­es told me, as a re­porter on the scene in 2018, that the ac­cused was not at home that morn­ing.

They claimed of­fi­cers came to Grant’s home around 5:45 am, went in­side, and some­how end­ed up shoot­ing one an­oth­er.

In the let­ter, Cor­po­ral Grant, via his lawyer, claimed that “We have been fur­nished with fur­ther cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion that cor­rob­o­rates the as­ser­tion that the po­lice of­fi­cers may have gone to the home of my client with mal-in­tent.

“It is im­per­a­tive that the acts that en­sued in­volv­ing Po­lice Con­sta­ble Ian of the San­gre Grande CID and Spe­cial Re­serve Con­sta­ble Mar­tin be thor­ough­ly and swift­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed. I am in­struct­ed that Mr Mar­tin has a long-stand­ing per­son­al griev­ance con­cern­ing my client,” it added.

Of­fi­cial state­ments, which go along with Grant’s ver­sion, were made by oth­er of­fi­cers in the shootout.

In one of them, an of­fi­cer ex­pressed re­gret at hav­ing giv­en a pre­vi­ous state­ment that con­tra­dict­ed Grant’s ver­sion of ac­counts.

In an­oth­er state­ment, it was claimed that one of the three of­fi­cers, a Con­sta­ble Hold­er, ad­mit­ted to a col­league be­ing the first per­son to fire his gun in the house.

It fur­ther claimed that the Con­sta­ble ad­mit­ted to shoot­ing an­oth­er of­fi­cer by mis­take.

‘‘I was not sure if I want­ed to get Po­lice Con­sta­ble Hold­er in trou­ble and that was a very hard de­ci­sion for me to make,” an of­fi­cer is quot­ed as say­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports made by of­fi­cers, this is what took place that morn­ing.

Be­fore go­ing to Grant’s house in San­gre Grande, all of­fi­cers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the East­ern Di­vi­sion’s Op­er­a­tion Strike Back Ex­er­cise were briefed at the Man­zanil­la High School.

There, they were briefed by an in­spec­tor, an act­ing con­sta­ble, and oth­er se­nior of­fi­cers, and told that there were eight tar­gets, all of whom there were war­rants for. Of­fi­cers were sub­di­vid­ed in­to eight teams, with a team leader des­ig­nat­ed for each.

The first war­rant ex­e­cut­ed fol­lowed prop­er pro­ce­dure, and noth­ing il­le­gal was found.

Fol­low­ing that search, the con­sta­ble claimed that the team leader made a call to some­one, be­fore in­struct­ing the rest of the team to meet up with an­oth­er se­nior of­fi­cer, an in­spec­tor, at Madoos­ingh Dri­ve in San­gre Grande.

When there, the re­port claimed that an­oth­er of­fi­cer, PC Ian, with­out a brief­ing, said the group would be go­ing to a house in North East­ern Set­tle­ment.

An of­fi­cer re­called a con­ver­sa­tion with a se­nior of­fi­cer that day, “I asked PC Ian if he had a war­rant for the tar­get be­cause this was in­for­ma­tion that I ob­served com­ing for­ward, whilst the ini­tial ex­er­cise was go­ing on.”

The se­nior of­fi­cer replied, “Yes, and it’s for il­le­gal firearms and am­mu­ni­tion, but it’s at the San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion. I sent an of­fi­cer, whose name I was not aware of, to re­trieve it.”

Sus­pi­cious, the per­son giv­ing their of­fi­cial state­ment said they had rea­son to be­lieve that Grant was not a list­ed tar­get of Op­er­a­tion Strike Back.

The per­son said Grant was not named in the ini­tial eight tar­gets who were iden­ti­fied in the op­er­a­tion’s brief­ing ear­li­er that morn­ing.

IN SEARCH OF JUS­TICE

Ac­cord­ing to con­cerned po­lice sources, ex­cept for Po­lice Con­sta­ble Cristo­pher, who is on in­jury leave, all of­fi­cers in­volved are still on ac­tive du­ty.

This de­spite of­fi­cer Mal­colm Grant fil­ing an of­fi­cial com­plaint to the Po­lice Com­plaints Di­vi­sion, dat­ed Oc­to­ber 2018.

In what ap­pears to be a con­flict of in­ter­est, the ini­tial po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter was car­ried out by an in­spec­tor at­tached to the East­ern Di­vi­sion, the sources claimed.

They claimed that the in­ves­ti­ga­tor is said to be un­der the di­rect su­per­vi­sion of one of the se­nior of­fi­cers who was present at the shoot­ing in­ci­dent that day.

They al­so be­lieve that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is be­ing de­lib­er­ate­ly stalled by of­fi­cers present at the shoot­ing, to cov­er up their roles in the in­ci­dent.

In a let­ter sent by his at­tor­ney to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion chair­man, Grant ap­peared to al­so be­lieve this.

“Sev­er­al of the of­fi­cers present that morn­ing con­firmed that po­lice of­fi­cers at the scene in obe­di­ence to the in­struc­tions giv­en to them by the com­mand­ing of­fi­cer opened in­dis­crim­i­nate fire on the struc­ture.

“The in­ter­nal dis­charge of rapid gun­fire which re­sult­ed in nu­mer­ous bul­let holes and ex­ten­sive dam­age to the build­ing struc­ture can be viewed by the rea­son­able man to be a de­lib­er­ate ef­fort to en­sure oc­cu­pants with­in the said struc­ture would not sur­vive that at­tack,” claimed Grant.

“It is not­ed that the in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed to us al­leges that very se­nior of­fi­cers were in­volved in the shoot­ing in­ci­dent and this presents a di­rect con­flict of in­ter­est for any in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­ing con­duct­ed by of­fi­cers from the East­ern Di­vi­sion.

“We are al­so very con­cerned about the risk to po­ten­tial wit­ness­es, po­lice and civil­ians alike and the abil­i­ty of the of­fi­cers in­volved to in­ter­fere,” a let­ter from Grant’s at­tor­ney added.

RE­SPONSE FROM PCA

Di­rec­tor of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty David West con­firmed that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter was opened, and is still on­go­ing.

Speak­ing in gen­er­al terms, and not with spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence to this mat­ter, he said the great­est de­lay in com­plet­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions usu­al­ly oc­curs when of­fi­cers re­quest doc­u­ments from third par­ties.

“Gen­er­al­ly, third par­ties try to ful­fil our re­quests, but due to in­sti­tu­tion­al de­lays on their part, the in­for­ma­tion takes time,” West said.

He said since stay-at-home mea­sures were im­ple­ment­ed on March 30, 60 mat­ters, have been sub­mit­ted to the PCA as of April 29.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored