Residents want to meet President Richards

ANGRY Morvant residents want  a meeting with his Excellency President George Maxwell Richards to discuss the shooting death of Galene Bonadie, 41. Residents claim they have lost all confidence in Prime Minister Patrick Manning and his Minister of National Security Martin Joseph. They feel their concerns would be better dealt with by the President. Bonadie was shot dead at point blank range with an assault rifle while walking along Vegas in Morvant on Friday night. Yesterday, agitated residents protested the killing and said that Bonadie was murdered in cold blood by a police officer. More than 10 eyewitnesses to the shooting death said that they were willing to give statements to investigators who are carrying out a probe into the death. Newsday learned that ASP Nadir Khan of the Homicide Bureau was mandated by the Commissioner of Police to carry out an independent inquiry into the death.

“The police murdered an innocent woman and we want justice,” shouted angry residents, hours after the killing. Sean “Bill” Francis, former boyfriend of Bonadie, was in a defiant mood yesterday insisting that the mother of his two children was killed in cold blood. He said he had already contacted attorney Ravi Rajcoomar to look into the matter and was in the process of contacting attorney Anand Ramlogan. The grieving Francis said that Bonadie earned an honest living and did not deserve the violent death which she suffered. Surrounded by scores of Morvant residents, Francis said he would not rest until justice was served in the matter. An eyewitness related that around 5.45 pm on Friday, four officers were interrogating a man in a vehicle when Bonadie rebuked the police for the manner in which they were beating the man.

The eyewitness claimed that an officer cocked his gun causing it to fire at Bonadie. The shot from the gun split her head in two severing her head and causing several pieces of her skull and brain to be spattered on persons nearby. Bonadie’s was thrown into a police vehicle and taken to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital. Francis was one of the men whom Prime Minister Patrick Manning met secretly to broker a deal among warring gang factions in Laventille and Morvant. In 1998, he was given a top URP position by Sadiq Baksh and in 1999, he was a UNC candidate in the local government elections.