Shots fired, tear gas thrown

According to a police report, the incident occurred at about 3 am when party-goers attending the “Best of Both Worlds” concert became agitated when they realised that the show was nearing closing time (5 am) and none of the three featured Jamaican artistes had taken the stage.

Party-goers, police said, began to hurl abusive language and began pelting bottles on the stage, which eventually brought down the curtains to the show. Police said that the crowd became very unruly to a point that they had to fire warning shots in the air and throw cannisters of tear gas among patrons for them to disperse. Police said however that there were no reports of injuries.

It was advertised that highlight performances would have been given by Richell Bonner, 36, aka Richie Spice, O’Neil Bryant, 32, aka Elephant Man also known as The Energy God and Reanno Gordon aka Busy Signal, along with several local reggae artistes.

Newsday was told by an investigating officer that the Jamaican dancehall artistes were in the country and had failed to show at the concert because of an alleged breach in the payment contract with the concert promoter — Red Lotus Entertainment.

However, an official of Red Lotus Entertainment, when contacted yesterday, denied that the artistes failed to show because of a payment problem. “That is not true, those had to be rumours,” the official said.

He then gave an explanation, “There was a delay in the artistes’ arrival and because of this the crowd became impatient and unruly. The artistes were then informed by band members about the crowd’s behaviour and they were the ones who decided not to show because of what was happening.”

Attempts were made by Newsday to contact the artistes and their respective managers who were all booked in at the Trinidad Hilton only to be told by the receptionist at the front desk that they (the Jamaicans) had checked out of the hotel very early and believed to have taken the next flight out to Jamaica.

Newsday understands that a Jamaican artiste can be booked and paid between US$8,000 to US$15,000 to perform locally.

Deputy Police Commis-sioner Winston Cooper said that he heard of the incident and assured that there would be a probe into it.