(Trinidad Guardian) 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 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.
