KHAMAL GEORGES

A man cru­sad­ing as “The Re­sis­tance” who de­faced sev­er­al build­ings in Port-of-Spain and al­leged­ly set the Min­istry of Health on fire in a cam­paign against COVID-19 mea­sures, has been ar­rest­ed and charged. 

Twen­ty-sev­en-year-old Jean Paul Coop­er, who the Prime Min­is­ter de­scribed as a lu­natic fringe dur­ing a news con­fer­ence, was ar­rest­ed on Mon­day af­ter weeks of in­ves­ti­ga­tions by of­fi­cers of the Port of Spain Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment (CID). 

Fol­low­ing the at­tack on the health min­istry dur­ing the ear­ly hours of Au­gust 8th, the res­i­dent of Di­a­mond Vale, Diego Mar­tin, al­leged­ly left a mes­sage in red spray paint on the build­ing that stat­ed: “COVID-19 is all about the New World Or­der. Stop it now. #THERE­SIS­TANCE.”

In the days and weeks fol­low­ing his ar­son at the health min­istry, ‘The Re­sis­tance’ al­so al­leged­ly van­dal­ized sev­er­al oth­er build­ings in Port of Spain, in­clud­ing Guardian Me­dia’s head of­fice on St. Vin­cent Street on Sun­day 16 Au­gust. The man took is­sue with the me­dia con­glom­er­ate’s stance on ed­u­cat­ing the pub­lic about COVID-19. 

“ON BE­HALF OF T&T WE SAY NO LOCK­DOWN, NO MANDA­TO­RY MASK WEAR­ING, COVID NUH RE­AL,” was writ­ten on the com­pa­ny’s build­ing af­ter one of the glass panes were bro­ken. 

Coop­er is al­so as­so­ci­at­ed with the group Trinidad and To­ba­go Unit­ed Pow­er (TT­UP), which was in­clud­ed in the spray paint­ed mes­sag­ing. 

Sim­i­lar mes­sages were spray-paint­ed on the walls of build­ings hous­ing First Cit­i­zens and Sco­tia­bank, the clock out­side Nicholas Tow­ers, the bMo­bile out­let, and even the Cipari­ni Stat­ue on In­de­pen­dence Square in down­town Port-of-Spain.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors say the of­fences car­ry se­ri­ous penal­ties in­clud­ing life in prison, as stat­ed in the Ma­li­cious Dam­age Act. 

The act states: “ Any per­son who un­law­ful­ly and ma­li­cious­ly sets fire to any build­ing, oth­er than those spec­i­fied in sec­tions 3 to 5, be­long­ing to the State, or to any city, bor­ough, town, ward, parish, or place, or to any Court of Jus­tice, or de­vot­ed or ded­i­cat­ed to pub­lic use or or­na­ment, or erect­ed or main­tained by pub­lic sub­scrip­tion or con­tri­bu­tion, is li­able to im­pris­on­ment for life.”

Sgt Clarke and Cpl Masleir of the Port-of-Spain CID con­duct­ed the in­ves­ti­ga­tions which led to his ar­rest and charge.