I wrote the following words in 2015: The diminution of a murder to ‘gang related’ has promoted a (group think) consciousness that some deaths are acceptable. Moreso, we embraced extra judicial killings as a justifiable response to a situation which is out of control. “Kill everybody an done!” However, there …
Read More »Noble: The Nobodies; ‘invisible to all, scorned by all’—Morvant vs the world
Last Saturday, three men were shot dead in their neighbourhood at about 2.30pm. Six hours after, the newspapers went to press not knowing the identity of two of the men while the other one was more likely to be named as ‘Warlord’. They were nobodies. On social media, some rejoiced …
Read More »MSJ: Was ‘cockroach’ jibe a ‘license’ to kill? Arrest and suspend ALL lawmen involved in M’vt slaying
“[…] It seems as though members of the police force have taken the commissioner’s use of force policy and his incendiary remarks about ‘cockroaches’ as a license to kill. This is not the first time that this has happened under the watch of Gary Griffith, as we had a similar …
Read More »Jacobs, Clinton, Diamond, the TTPS, Chee Mooke and the REAL Morvant victims
Morvant residents faced a swift reprisal for alleged misdeeds yesterday. But on this occasion, the judge, jury and executioner was not the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS). It was Chee Mooke Bakery Limited, which revealed that it will no longer serve that community after its driver was robbed—in the midst …
Read More »Protesting Dissonance: “While race is certainly a factor, class is the true divider here…”
The Police Complaints Authority (PCA) has investigated 150 fatal police shooting incidents resulting in 258 deaths from 2011 to March 2019. According to their statistics, the average annual number of police killings between 2013 and 2019 works out to about 34 deaths per year. Across the same time period in …
Read More »Gilkes: Where denial meets ignorance; and where you can stuff ‘all lives matter’
Dem old people and dem does say: ‘when yuh neighbour house on fire, wet yuh own’. So I trying to wet mine, with this open rant to Lasana Liburd and my not-so-secret crush Dr Sheila Rampersad. Because we Trinis doh learn, we doh like to connect things and we love to live …
Read More »Noble: Slipping into the Abyss; police killings, socio-economic triggers and controversial photo
The ghoulish picture of our police commissioner over the dead body of a murder suspect (Express, 28 December) reminded me of Nietzsche’s aphorism: ‘He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster… if thou gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze into …
Read More »Noble: A nation, moral leadership, short-sightedness; standing at the gates of Hell
“Hatred is corrosive of a person’s wisdom and conscience; the mentality of enmity can poison a nation’s spirit, instigate brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and block a nation’s progress to freedom and democracy.” Liu Xiaobo, 2010 Nobel Prize Laureate. The spectacle of a former …
Read More »Demming: Dr Rowley’s Carenage interview suggests gun violence trauma at epidemic level
An interview with Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and his constituents seemed to aggravate a deep wound in that area. What I saw and heard was a man from within the constituency reliving the pain of the shooting death of his mother WPC Bernadette James and asking for some assurance …
Read More »Dear Editor: ‘One shot, one kill’ is common sense; T&T intelligentsia is taking CoP statement out of context
“The CoP has also made it pellucidly clear that his statement was not a licence to kill unarmed perpetrators or perpetrators, who do not pose an imminent threat and are armed with lethal weapons… How much clearer can the CoP be?” The following Letter to the Editor regarding criticism of …
Read More »Gary needs more lightning, less thunder; Demming explains why she would gag CoP
Brace yourself for heightened aggression from the police! That’s the message I received from the recent television interview with Commissioner of Police (CoP) Gary Griffith about the police killing of five young men in Laventille. To paraphrase this very powerful citizen, anyone who objects to his approach either has not …
Read More »Dear Editor: T&T needs more thoughtful, collective response to crime, not blustery overreaction
“Being poor or even living in Laventille does not cause one to engage in crime or any other behaviour, but they make certain lines of conduct easier or more difficult. When poverty or unemployment is treated within the context of strong families and an active socialising church, crime and vandalism …
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