Bullets for stones

The victim has been identified as Daniel ‘Paul-O’ Paul, 23, of Ritchie Street, Ste Madeleine.

It was reported that police shot Paul after he threw stones at them at 7 pm near his home.

Two officers from the Ste Madeleine Police Station responded to a report of a disturbance at Ritchie Street. When police arrived, the owner of a BMW van told them Paul had thrown a glass bottle at his van then a stone at a nearby wall.

An eyewitness said that police asked Paul to apologise for his actions and he refused. “After he pelt the glass bottle, it left a scratch mark on the BMW. When police asked him to apologise, Daniel said ‘no’. He told police his head was hurting and he was going to apologise tomorrow.

He walked off and while in a track someone called out to him, told him something and he got vex,” an eyewitness said.

While in the track located on an empty parcel of land near his home, Paul picked up two big stones. Police asked him to put them down and he refused.

“Police were talking to him and then they opened fire. We heard several loud shots. Since the track is dark we cannot say if he really threw the stones at them or not. There were people on the road at the time,” the eyewitness said.

Paul later died at San Fernando General Hospital.

He was an out-patient of the Psychiatric Ward of that hospital.

Relatives said that the police had no right to shoot Paul dead. They said he was armed with stones while the officers had guns. “They could have shot him in a manner to disarm him...not take his life,” a relative cried.

Recently, National Security Minister Edmund Dillon, in responding to a question in Parliament, said the police receive intense training at the Police Barracks and this training includes how to deal with mentally ill members of the public. Weeks later, Toco/Sangre Grande MP and retired Assistant Commissioner of Police Jennings-Smith said publicly that police are not trained to deal with mentally ill people.

On March 16, police shot dead St Ann’s outpatient Paul Marchan, 30, while he was having a mental breakdown at his home at Richplain in Diego Martin. He was a PH driver. Police claimed he was acting violently and when they attempted to detain him, he attacked with a broken bottle and injured two policemen.

Back-up police were called in and Marchan was shot in the chest.

Two days later, a policeman shot lorry loader Miguel Rodriguez, 24, near Woodstock Bar at Indian Walk in Moruga. The officer observed Rodriguez and his brother Saran Albert Thomas, 29, striking a car. The off-duty officer approached and an argument ensued. A fight broke out and Rodriguez was shot. He died later in hospital.

Mentally-ill patient Raymond Joseph, 51, of Mahaica Road, died at the Pt Fortin Area Hospital on April 2, after a municipal policeman shot him when Joseph attempted to grab the officer’s gun. Joseph was a former soldier.