That was one of the many threats hurled at police officers yesterday in the wake of the early morning shooting death of reputed gang member, Anton “ Bready” Mitchell, 26, of Enterprise. Residents, police said, also threatened the lives of their families when they turned on the police officers for fatally shooting one of their own. They denied that Mitchell had shot at police first. Mitchell has since been identified by officers as the “second in command” of the notorious “Unruly Isis Gang” operating in the hotspot Enterprise community.

Further reports stated that Mitchell had been fearful for his life following the recent release of two members of a rival gang from prison.

The killing sparked immediate outrage in the neighbourhood and angry villagers showed their disgust by blocking the road and setting fire to tyres and other debris in Crown Trace and surrounding areas. Fire appliances from the Chaguanas Fire Station responded.

Police officers said they are not taking the threats lightly. “These are active threats coming to us and our families,” one officer told Newsday yesterday.

One person, identified as Jadah Lewis, took to Facebook to express her anger over the killing.

She wrote, “Time fu (sic) men to start rolling on dem police families an show them how it feels to loose (sic) someone dey really love cuz like dey have no heart…how alyah (sic) could kill de boii (sic) just so, alyah to wicket hearted n badminded…” Reports stated that Mitchell was killed during a shootout with police who had entered his home while he was still in his bed. One Glock .9 mm pistol and two live rounds of ammunition and five spent shells were allegedly recovered from the scene. According to a report, at about 5 am yesterday, officers acting on intelligence that Mitchell had been sleeping with an unlicensed firearm for his own protection, obtained a search warrant for arms and ammunition and went to his home located at Walters Lane, off Bhagaloo Trace to execute same. The report further stated that as police announced their presence, Mitchell drew his loaded weapon and opened fire on the officers. Police returned fire hitting Mitchell several times. He was rushed to the Chaguanas District Health Facility where he was pronounced dead on arrival by Dr Rafiqul Iman.

Police said Mitchell had eight matters pending in the court including possession of firearm, possession of ammunition, and assault and battery.

The offences are alleged to have been committed in 2015. Police said three of Mitchell’s victims, who are also from Enterprise, had to be hospitalised after he allegedly shot and wounded them “within the last year.”. Officers of the Central Operations Unit, Guard and Emergency Branch, Inter-Agency Task Force with the support of a contingent of soldiers from the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force were engaged in a 24 hour anti crime exercise in the central division. A senior officer speaking to Newsday said they were praised by members of the Crown Trace community who were on their way to work yesterday morning .

He said: “People in Crown Trace going to work this morning and, under their breath when they are passing, they praising the police for what they did. They watching on the ground, they are afraid to watch you in your face because if someone only see them talking to the police, they could end up as victims.” When contacted for comment, Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams said while he was aware of the police-involved homicide, he was not aware of reports of threats on the lives of police officers who were involved.

“When you lose this election call it a day,” she declared.

She pointed out that in 2013 Persad-Bissessar had lost the Tobago House of Assembly elections, the Chaguanas bye-election, the St Joseph bye-election, the Local Government elections and in 2015 lost the general elections.

“Five consecutive losses and you well on your way to number six. You are a serial loser. Time to roll over,” she said.

She was speaking on Wednesday night at the People’s National Movement (PNM) public meeting held at Bournes Road, St James.

McDonald said that she has experienced a number of election campaigns and for this Local Government election she has a sense that the Opposition has “lost their way” and during the campaign she has not heard any policy position nor one word on how they planned to improve the lives of burgesses.

“What a crying shame,” she declared.

She dismissed the United National Congress (UNC) as “clueless, baseless, rudderless and vacuous” and that they had outlived their usefulness.

She said that the PNM’s Local Government reform would remove the red tape and “malaise” that prevent Local Government bodies from doing their work in an efficient manner and pointed out that Jamaica had launched their local government reform programme back in 1995 and it has been a “tremendous success”.

Returning to the Opposition she said that she has heard their rhetoric but questioned “what is your Local Government plan? I have heard nothing from your party”.

She said reform would create new job opportunities through

Attorney Nafeeza Mohammed said yesterday family members are excited to finally be reunited with the men who are expected to arrive from Caracas by midday today.

“We are just glad that all of this is coming to an end,” Mohammed said.

“Yesterday the Americans celebrated Thanksgiving, and today we have a lot to be thankful for.” Newsday understands the five men were, on Wednesday, transferred from the Sebin prison to the Venezuelan Immigration Department where they were being prepared to board a flight.

There was a concern about their health after spending two years in prison, however Mohammed yesterday said with confidence that they are not anticipating any health issues among them.

She noted that whatever processes have to be undertaken, there will be full co-operation with all involved to ensure the men will be reunited with their families as soon as possible.

The initiative titled Go Safe will provide road safety tips and also seek to edify motorists not only on best practice in driving but also on matters related to traffic laws.

The information will be reproduced in a special corner in the features section of the Friday Newsday with the intention of reaching people who will be heading out by vehicle to the myriad of week-end activities across the country.

Both establishments have expressed the hope that the effort, as small as it is, will redound to the benefit not only of motorists, but other passengers and also pedestrians who tend to compete with the traffic specially in the city and town centres. They are also calling on citizens to communicate traffic infractions to both the newspaper and the TAA, so that both bodies could address the issues with the relevant authorities.

Paul, 71, pleaded guilty to the offence of drunk driving. He was fined $7,000 by the magistrate who warned that as a senior public servant, the mayor ought to set a better example. We could not agree more.

While Paul eventually saved the State the expense of sending the matter to trial, aspects of the case were not satisfactory. In the first place, the mayor did not plead guilty at the earliest possible opportunity.

He pleaded not guilty then later missed an initial trial date, though his lawyer cited medical reasons.

The reasons given in mitigation for the mayor by his lawyer — none other than former Acting Police Commissioner James Philbert — were also disappointing.

According to Philbert, Paul consumed DayQuil (a cold medicine) then took two drinks, prior to his arrest.

However, the court heard evidence that on October 18, at Grant Trace in Rousillac, police of the South-Western Division intercepted a car driven by Paul during a roadblock exercise. While speaking to him, the officers observed that Paul’s breath had a strong odour and his speech was slurred.

How much DayQuil does one have to consume, on top of two drinks, for this to be the result? Was Paul guzzling DayQuil? And even assuming the DayQuil story, that was no excuse for being on the road in the condition the mayor was in, whether ill or inebriated.

Too often, drivers forget their actions impact not only their safety but the safety of others. Paul should have stayed at home and rested. Or if the circumstances did not allow that, alternate transport arrangements should have been made.

No one should take any pleasure when a State official appears in court.

Paul is not the first public official so to do. Indeed, a former Minister in the Ministry of National Security, Collin Partap, also appeared in court on breathalyser charges (an appeal is pending).

What makes this incident particularly distasteful, however, is the cloud that had been looming over Paul since the death of Asami Nagakiya.

Paul infamously came to the defence of former Port-of-Spain Mayor Raymond Tim Kee for his victim-shaming remarks. The intervention resulted in stern words from PNM political leader Dr Keith Rowley.

“I don’t know that it is advisable for anyone to be supporting something which is clearly unacceptable, the unacceptability of which has resulted in the Mayor’s withdrawal from office,” Rowley told reporters in February when asked about remarks made by Point Fortin Mayor Clyde Paul. “That does not sound to me as a very sensible position and I did mention very early on that we are holding people responsible for individual conduct.” The Prime Minister further said, “People are responsible for their own conduct and they will be held accountable. Accountability comes in a variety of ways. There is public opinion. There is sanction.

We take it on a case by case basis.” Sadly, taking things on a “case by case basis” resulted in no action, no change.

Ironically, had action been taken since February, the PNM would not today be grappling on the eve of an election with the question of whether Paul will have to be removed from the pool of aldermen who will potentially take office after next Monday.

The amended Municipal Corporations Act makes it clear that a person may be deemed unable to serve as alderman at any stage in the life of a council, meaning a decision will have to be made, whether before or after.

For now we are encouraged that the full process of law was allowed to play itself out. Now the police must continue their work in implementing systems to make our roads safer.

I thought this to be true too until I read an 844-page book titled The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker. This book first caught my eye because it had been recommended by Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook.

There is much to ponder in Pinker’s history of violence throughout the world. Pinker leaves no stone unturned in his treatise on crime. All of his observations and theories are backed up with statistics that prove his points.

The statistics for crime and violence in the US are most startling because they seem to be most difficult to explain. And yet it is possible to see how many circumstances in the US can apply to Trinidad and Tobago.

Pinker says, “Among western democracies, the United States leaps out of world-wide homicide statistics.

Instead of clustering with kindred people like Britain, the Netherlands and Germany, it hangs out with toughs like Albania and Uruguay, close to the median rate for the entire world.” Most violence is committed by 15-30-year-olds, and the upturn in crime during the 1960s was shared with every other western democracy.

Other statistics stand out in a startling way.

In the US, the homicide rate for black Americans is almost nine times higher than the homicide rate for whites, but it is a mistake to write off crime as a product of race. Pinker says southern whites are more violent than northern whites and southern blacks are more violent than northern blacks so crime rates soar for both races in the south. Crime and violence, he says, boils down to not having a sense of community.

In the US, slavery created communities of Afro-Americans who were essentially stateless. They had no government to buy into because government never offered a sense of belonging or a sense of protection. So Pinker argues that Afro-Americans began relying on a culture of honour, sometimes called the code of the streets, rather than calling on the law.

Could this partly explain crime in Trinidad? We certainly do have communities that do not feel protected by or represented by Government.

These are the communities that are run by gangs, and they rely on a vigilante style of justice. They don’t trust police.

Because there is so much crime and violence in the US that relates to guns, we tend to blame guns for crime. But it’s more complicated than that. Pinker argues democracy came too early to America.

In Europe, Government first disarmed people and then introduced democracy. In America, people took over the states and then tried to get people to lay down their arms. That is why the second amendment is so controversial in the US. The right to bear arms is ingrained in US citizens, and they won’t give it up in spite of mass murders and school shootings.

“In other words,” Pinker says, “Americans — and especially Americans in the south and west — never fully signed on to a social contract that would best the government on a monopoly of the legitimate use of force.” Is that true here too? The point is crime and violence have a complicated history, which I fear we have not begun to delve into yet.

N e x t week: Part two of The Better Angels of Our Nature: So what puts a dent in crime? Find out what Pinker has to say.

“We cannot trust the police,” his sister Fatima Mitchell said.

“All they do is lie! He had no gun when the police came for him. He knew they were coming for him and he opened the door to go with them. But yesterday they went to kill him. If the Government really want to stop crime, they will start with the corrupt police in Chaguanas Station!” Fatima claimed that Mitchell had been repeatedly harassed by the police officers.

“They used to come and hold him for 72 hours and say it is on inquiries and then let him go,” she recalled.

“It had police that used to pass here and say ‘Bready we going to kill you’. We make several complaints to the Police Complaints Unit and nothing came of it because police is for police! When will this stop? They keep harassing us in Crown Trace! What are we, criminals? Dogs?”

Newsday understands that Fraud Squad officers under Senior Superintendent Totaram Dookhie were yesterday awaiting certain documents before approaching the DPP for their final instructions with respect to the arrest of the officers.

It is alleged that while the Acting Superintendent and the SRP were at the RRU the acting superintendent allegedly fraudulently signed duty slips which allowed the SRP to collect her monthly salary.

It was also alleged that the SRP never turned up for work during a certain period and yet was being paid because of the fraudulent duty slip allegedly signed by the acting superintendent.

Persad-Bissessar made her call before a crowd of a supporters at the UNC’s public meeting at the Penal Secondary School, Penal on Wednesday night. First, she restated previous questions to the Prime Minister about possible links between him, the People’s National Movement, (PNM) and the “plywood man” responsible for the US$2 million discovery.

“Do you know the person who is alleged to have brought in these US dollars? Is he a financier of the PNM? Does he visit your residence? Answer the question. Don’t distract and go off on tangents. Answer!” she said.

“So before this money disappears, before the rat eat it in some place, I am calling on the Prime Minister, if you are serious about this investigation, bring in experts from the United States. And I understand it is usually people from the Treasury Department because they are in charge of the dollars and so on. Bring them to check the serial numbers on these dollar bills.” Persad-Bissessar later renewed her call for Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi to be removed from office, this time for the US’ apparent “distrust” of the Attorney General’s (AG) Office.

“Look, I am a lawyer for how much umpteen years and I am not as young as I would like to be. So for all my years that I know, I have never heard or seen in our great country…where a foreign government and on top of that the government of the USA is saying they have no confidence, they do not trust the office of the AG. You ever hear that?” She was referring to a Newsday article where Queen’s Counsel James Lewis was seeking for the US to be heard in the judicial review proceedings against the Attorney General’s decision to sign an extradition request from the US for Jack Warner. Justice James Aboud had previously ruled against this, saying that the US’ interests would be sufficiently handled by the Office of the Attorney General. Asked by Chief Justice Ivor Archie whether he did not trust the AG’s Office, Lewis said, “Well that is one way of putting it.” He later clarified, however, that his statements meant that the US had different interests than the AG’s Office and so should be given a chance to be heard.

Cedeno, who is presiding over the Dana Seetahal murder inquiry, said she was instrumental in having the Criminal Proceedings Rules (CPR), which govern the conduct of criminal cases in the High Court, instituted in the magistrates courts.

“Attorneys should familiarise themselves with the CPR because there would be sanctions,” Cedeno told defence attorney Criston J Williams who, although having finally completed his written submissions on his bad character objection, did not file and serve it on the Prosecution before yesterday’s court date. He was to have done so by November 17 so that the Prosecution could have responded in time for yesterday’s hearing.

Cedeno was stern when she told Williams she will not adjourn the matter again, although she did accede to his request as he had a personal issue to deal with.

The prosecution has been given until December 13 to respond to the submissions while the matter will again come up for hearing on December 22, when the senior magistrate is expected to give her ruling.

Accused of the murder are former LifeSport co-ordinator Rajaee Ali, two of his brothers and eight other men. They are accused of murdering the senior counsel on May 4, 2014, along Hamilton Holder Street, Woodbrook, as she made her way to her One Woodbrook Place home shortly after leaving Ma Pau Casino on Ariapita Avenue, Port of Spain.