Stop the abuse and advantage. This was the message sent to acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams from residents of Beverley Hills, Laventille, who claimed police and soldiers abused them during a protest in the area on Tuesday evening. When a news team from the T&T Guardian visited the community yesterday afternoon several men who were involved in the protest said they were still nursing wounds received during clashes with the police and soldiers.
Some of the residents, including women, showed media personnel bruises to their faces and arms and provided medical certificates to support their claim they had been treated for the injuries at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital. They all called on Williams to ensure that there was an independent probe into police brutality in the community on Tuesday.
The residents claimed they did not incite the confrontation but said it was the officers who provoked them. “When we start to protest, they (the police) just come up here and start beating people and threatening to shoot them,” an unidentified resident said. They said they began the protest after a 19-year-old was arrested by police on Tuesday. They claimed while in police custody he was repeatedly beaten and his dreadlocks hacked off.
A spokesman for the residents, who only identified himself as Quasi, claimed when the protest escalated the officers began shooting at them. “Them officers know we unarmed and they just start to shoot at we. They too trigger-happy,” Quasi said. They also denied residents shot at officers during the exchange but claimed the officers discharged more than 100 rounds of ammunition.
The residents said they were not opposed to joint police/army patrols in their community but were concerned that some officers were abusing their powers. “We have no problem when the police come up here and seize drugs and guns and arrest people. That is their job. We just don’t want them to come here to beat and intimidate people,” Quasi said.
Since the incident, Senior Supt Carlton Alleyne of the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) has been assigned to investigate the allegations. He and other investigators visited on Tuesday night and interviewed the residents. The teenager who was at the centre of the incident, who asked to remain unidentified, told the T&T Guardian the police took him to the Besson Street Police Station and released him after a couple of hours.
“As soon as I walk out of the station, men from East Dry River attack me and beat me. I run for my life,” he said.