Sledgehammer attack appalling
THE EDITOR: Right now, the Evergreen community is boiling over with anger, women and children are crying because their homes were destroyed, some of the elderly among us are saying it is typical of the PNM and while others are contemplating who to support in the next general elections and the young and adventurous are saying "Gawd, if we only had guns!" For those of you who do not know what I am referring to, please allow me to explain. On Thursday January 12, 2006 (two days after LSA officials came to our peaceful God-fearing community and informed us that it was the final day to register for the occupation of land we were on), two vehicles loaded with policemen and an official of the LSA (I am praying for him), came to Evergreen. Without warning, a lone sledgehammer slinger waded into houses one after the other bringing them down as if he built them and therefore had the right to destroy them. One particular house that refused to budge was hog-tied by the sledge-slinger, a gargantuan weighing about 230 to 240 pounds slightly balding six to six feet in height. It was the timely intervention of a nest of (wasps) tattoo jeps, which saved the day and allowed that house to remain unbroken. It is still standing although it was pulled off its posts. Residents came out pleading with the official (who we deemed to be policemen) to stop this wanton destruction but our pleading seemed to anger these officials wearing long coats on a hot sunny day to hide their identity. With nothing in place to prove or identify whether they were policemen or gangsters, (they carried guns, very big guns) we allowed ourselves to conclude, because of the presence of the LSA official, that they were indeed or should I say, supposedly officers of the law. Residents were denied the right to walk on the roads that they built although it was nowhere near close to the house being demolished. People were advised by one LSA abiding policeman to go and rent as he unashamedly admitted he was doing. When operation "overkill" was completed, with sadistic satisfaction on their faces, they got into their vehicles with heavy tinted glass all around and drove away, ending another episode of the State versus its citizens (deemed squatters). What was left behind are fifteen families without homes, without hope of regaining the parcel of land they occupied, and for the most part a lot of hate. Among the lot of 15 are women and children. ULSON HAMILTON SMALL Evergreen, Arima
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"Sledgehammer attack appalling"