FORGOTTEN LIKE NOBODY’S BUSINESS

Only a few days have gone by since I was contemplating the Chief Justice’s picture, wondering what he would look like with an afro and whether people like Sat Maharaj would be in Sharma’s corner if he did have tight curls. A few days later, even though I question the wisdom of my latest hobby — photograph gazing — I decide to extract my copy of a picture of Ignatius “Shakes” Owen from between the two magazines on the study shelf which have served as its crypt for the past four months. As I look at Ignatius “Shakes” Owen, the 48-year-old mechanic and father of three, who died in Remand Yard at Golden Grove Prison in September 2004, I realise that I am as troubled by the violence and brutality of the photograph now, as I was the first day I saw it. Ignatius “Shakes” Owen is lying on what seems to be a morgue gurney, separated from the metallic surface by a sheet of forensic plastic. His thick moustache and goatee are blood soaked. So are the lobes of his ears.

The left of his mouth is caved in, the right side swollen, as if someone used his fist as a jackhammer to pound Owen’s jaw. But it is the dead mechanic’s eyes that are the most disturbing. Half-shut, their eyelashes and lids coated in congealed blood, their expression says that though Owen resigned himself to his mortality, he still couldn’t understand why death had come calling so soon and so cruelly. I don’t normally bring home office photographs of victims of violent death, but in the case of Ignatius “Shakes” Owen, I felt compelled to save one so he would not be forgotten. I think I sensed last September — despite all the rhetoric about investigations and possibly an inquest — that the Ignatius “Shakes” Owen file would be stamped, “Unsolved” and that the “Do not disturb” drawer in the criminal justice system would become its tomb. The cause of my cynicism: the ridiculous and varying accounts of how Owen perished after being picked up by police on Thursday September 23, 2004 on a maintenance warrant.

We were told that Owen, previously of non-violent character, attacked prisoners in the Remand Yard in the prison and they retaliated, beating him to a pulp. Such a tale and a tall one at that signified that either prison guards were absent or opted to turn a blind eye to the raging fight in Remand Yard. The second theory on the possible cause of his unexpected demise — he had been banging his head on a wall and banged himself to death — was more incredible because such self-punishment meant Owen had to be extremely masochistic or completely psychotic. And again, where were the guards while he was committing bloody suicide? It suddenly occurs to me why I’m compelled today to inspect this particular image. I’ve remembered Ignatius “Shakes” Owen because of another case of sanctioned official violence and recklessness. It is the recent tragedy of 11-year-old Jovelle Caesar of Carenage who was knocked down and dragged by a car while he was with his family at Green Corner on Carnival Tuesday.

Eyewitnesses have not come forward to give formal statements and are only willing to speak to the media on the condition of anonymity. Their accounts indicate the worst: the driver was a senior police officer. No one is brave enough to point fingers at a cop. Not when past evidence shows that the police can get away with murder and certainly not when two weeks have gone by and there has been no assurance from the Commissioner of Police that the officer in question will be brought to book. The Ministers in the National Security Ministry are equally silent on justice for Jovelle as is his MP, Dr Keith Rowley. And even if all these people say anything at all, the end result will be only so much more hot air. Meanwhile Jovelle is left to ask why and to suffer. The Newsday report of his critical condition, published Wednesday February 23, is graphic. “Eleven-year-old Jovelle Caesar of Carenage,” it says, “lies in the Intensive Care Unit at the Mt Hope Hospital connected to tubes. Three machines monitor his vital signs.

His legs are bandaged. His right side is bandaged down to his pelvis. His eyes are blood shot. One of his hands is broken and the other is fractured. A tube runs from his right lung draining blood and fluid from the lung which has collapsed. There are lacerations on his shoulders and chest, and his neck is in a brace. Jovelle is conscious and tried to speak to his mother, Janice Joseph, but the tube in his mouth makes it difficult.” We also know from the report that Jovelle’s mother is demanding justice. She is unlikely to ever see it because her son, by all accounts, was injured by a policeman and is from a family of little means. The system will ensure it protects and serves its own with all its might against the defenceless.

Two weeks will become four months and Jovelle will be forgotten by all but his family and friends. He’ll be expected to return to his life when his injuries eventually heal, to study and become a responsible adult, his family expected to stop calling for justice, to cease rocking the boat. His case file will soon be consigned to the very drawer where Ignatius “Shakes” Owen’s lies. This is how it is and how it always has been in Trinidad and Tobago. Police and prisons officers can get away with mayhem and murder once the victim of their violence is thought to be a nobody. And that’s exactly what Jovelle Caesar and Ignatius “Shakes” Owen are in the eyes of almost everybody.

suz@itrini.com