Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Two teenagers and a 21-year-old moth­er of one were killed in a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing on the Ca­roni Sa­van­nah Road ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing.

The fa­tal con­fronta­tion oc­curred around 4.40 am near the Ca­roni cre­ma­tion site.

Po­lice said they re­ceived a re­port of a car with oc­cu­pants car­ry­ing guns and sub­se­quent­ly came up­on a white Nis­san Almera speed­ing along the road. Of­fi­cers said when they at­tempt­ed to stop the car, the dri­ver rammed the po­lice ve­hi­cle and two gun­shots were heard.

The car ran off the road and two oth­er gun­shots were heard be­fore po­lice re­turned fire, hit­ting the three oc­cu­pants.

The trio, who were pro­nounced dead at the Er­ic Willaims Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex around 5.14 am, were iden­ti­fied as Amir “Pa” Bis­soon, 16, Jaya Jo­di Barath, 21, both of Sama­roo Lane, Dook­iesingh Street Ex­ten­sion, St Au­gus­tine and Joseph Ramjit, of Kalpoo Street, Spring Vil­lage.

Po­lice claim they were af­fil­i­at­ed with the Re­sis­tance Gang, who are the mas­ter­minds be­hind ex­tor­tion rack­ets in cen­tral and north Trinidad. They said a black pis­tol was re­cov­ered from the car in which they were trav­el­ling.

How­ev­er, the po­lice ver­sion of the in­ci­dent is be­ing chal­lenged by rel­a­tives of Bis­soon who claimed he had been threat­ened by one of the four who was present at his fa­tal shoot­ing yes­ter­day.

They said the teen was fol­lowed by the law­men when he went to lime at a bar with friends and was part of a three-car con­voy when po­lice or­dered the oth­er cars to leave be­fore the trio was killed.

Bis­soon’s moth­er, Suni­ta Ram­jat­tan, said her son was tar­get­ed but she could not say why.

“I just want the truth to come out. I not say­ing it don’t have good po­lice, it have, but some of them re­al cor­rupt,” she said.

“They al­ways say­ing they hear­ing things about my son but they nev­er get no ev­i­dence. Based on what they hear­ing, them say and we say, they tar­get­ing him.”

Rel­a­tives said Bis­soon left home with around $4000 which his moth­er said he had saved up to go lim­ing on Sat­ur­day night. They claimed what­ev­er mon­ey he had on him, along with his jew­ellery, went miss­ing af­ter the shoot­ing.

They said the teen was plan­ning to vis­it the Unit­ed States and was prepar­ing to get his pass­port and ap­ply for a visa.

Po­lice said Bis­soon was want­ed in con­nec­tion with sev­er­al shoot­ings in the area and for ex­tort­ing a dou­bles ven­dor and oth­er busi­ness­es in the com­mu­ni­ty.

In re­sponse to the po­lice claims, Ram­jat­tan said: “I feel­ing mad be­cause they mak­ing false al­le­ga­tions to­wards my son and this not right. Dem po­lice know what they do. They know what they was do­ing and what they was about to do.”

Ram­jat­tan said she is not con­fi­dent that any­thing will come out of any in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“Po­lice is for po­lice,” she said.

Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) deputy di­rec­tor Michelle Solomon-Baksh con­firmed yes­ter­day that an in­ves­ti­ga­tor has been as­signed to in­ves­ti­gate the in­ci­dent.

Bis­soon is the third mem­ber of his fam­i­ly to meet a vi­o­lent end. Last De­cem­ber, his un­cle Anand Bis­soon and friend Shane Ramjits­ingh, were mur­dered while lim­ing at Anand’s home in St Au­gus­tine.

In May, two sus­pects in that mur­der o were killed by po­lice.

In 2018, Bis­soon’s fa­ther, Amar­nath, was gunned down at the fam­i­ly’s home.

Con­sta­ble Kevon Jack, a spe­cial re­serve po­lice of­fi­cer, of Mal­ick, Barataria, Nicholas ‘Nic­co’ John, 42, of Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni, and Adri­an ‘Lucky’ Gar­cia, a 28-year-old labour­er, of Madras Road Ex­ten­sion, Cunu­pia, are charged with mur­der­ing Anand Bis­soon.

Next door to Bis­soon’s home, Kam­la Barath said her plans to cel­e­brate her 60th birth­day have been re­placed with prepa­ra­tions for a wake for her daugh­ter, Jaya Jo­di Barath.

She said her daugh­ter, who cel­e­brat­ed her 21st birth­day on Ju­ly 30, went out on Sat­ur­day to cel­e­brate.

Re­call­ing their last con­ver­sa­tion, she said: “Be­fore 10 (pm) I called and asked where she was be­cause she said she was com­ing for 10. She say just now I com­ing, tell Dad­dy to buy a pack of milk and pam­pers for the child, I com­ing just now leave the door open. That was the last I heard from my child.”

Barath wants in­ves­ti­ga­tors to vis­it the bar the trio were lim­ing and re­trieve video footage which she said would show the po­lice of­fi­cers fol­low­ing Bis­soon. She be­lieved the death of her daugh­ter was an ex­tra-ju­di­cial killing.

Asked how she felt about her daugh­ter be­ing ac­cused of be­ing af­fil­i­at­ed with a crim­i­nal gang, Barath said she raised her daugh­ter in church and be­ing in­volved in crime was not in her. She added that she is trust­ing God for jus­tice as she had lit­tle means to hire at­tor­neys to take le­gal ac­tion.

Barath said her daugh­ter, the moth­er of a two-year-old girl, was plan­ning to join the Civil­ian Con­ser­va­tion Corps (CCC) to learn to be­come a nail tech­ni­cian.

“I see on Face­book they post up she is one of three gang mem­bers from Re­sis­tance Gang. That is a lie! I could go all the dis­tance and sue who­ev­er say­ing that be­cause my daugh­ter, she is no af­fil­i­a­tion with a gang,” the griev­ing moth­er said.