Police and Beetham residents yesterday clashed for a second day as another fiery protest broke out along the Priority Bus Route and the Beetham Highway. Gunshots were also exchanged between the police and residents who continued their protest over the fatal shooting of Beetham resident Christopher Greaves. Greaves, 23, of Fifth Street in Beetham, was shot by police on Sunday while walking to a parlour on Third Street. Police then reportedly prevented residents from attending to him for a half hour before they eventually put him in a van and took him to the hospital. He, however, died before reaching hospital.
Police claimed Greaves was armed and fired on them when they challenged him, while the residents claimed he was unarmed and was attacked by the police on his way to the parlour. This led to a fiery demonstration on Sunday evening, with residents piling debris onto the Beetham Highway and Priority Bus Route and setting it alight. Yesterday, those protests continued. The residents again threw rubble, furniture and other debris onto the Beetham Highway and the PBR. They even unloaded a dump truck that was filled with trees and bush onto the highway. This caused a backup of traffic to Wrightson Road. Police called for reinforcement and members of the T&T Regiment, Inter Agency Task Force and Guard and Emergency Branch responded. Traffic came to a complete standstill as the residents took the protest to the middle of the Priority Bus Route. Police also used tear gas to quell the protest along the Beetham Highway.
The residents threatened the police, who in turn called in an Amalgamated Security truck to put residents they planned to arrest. “All you want to talk but bring van to lock up people? We want justice,” residents shouted. Deputy police commissioner Mervyn Richardson and Supt Carlyle Huggins attempted to subdue the angry protesters, but could do little to calm their anger. The residents, including Greaves’ girlfriend, Khannah Thomas, again said yesterday he was carrying only a $2 soft drink when he was killed. Thomas stood holding their one-year-old toddler in her arms. “That’s wickedness. You can’t kill the boy for a soft drink just so. They have a right to protest. He kiss his son and went to buy a soft drink,” she said.
In an interview at the Forensic Science Centre yesterday, Greaves’ mother, Annette, also said her son had gone to buy a soft drink when he was killed. The mother of six said Greaves was the youngest of her children. “The police run into a fence and start to shoot. He didn’t know they was shooting him, so he started to run when he heard the gunshots. The police who shoot him leave and call a new batch to stay, while them who kill him gone,” she claimed. Annette said she believed her son was killed because of mistaken identity. “They just fly in a man house and shoot up the place. It have children around. It have rogue elements in the Police Service and the commissioner can’t see it. If my child was a gunman I wouldn’t mind. Why them doing those things? They suppose to protect and serve,” she said. “God don’t sleep and nothing goes unpaid. They have mothers, brothers and sisters and they have to lie to cover up their tracks. They don’t like Beetham people at all. Nobody will trust the police. But I trust God.”