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Residents identify Death Squad of 8 cops
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Police cry on Beetham
… after killing of man wanted for murder
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| By
CECILY ASSON |
THE
daily murders are not only impacting negatively on communities but
on police officers as well!
One Beetham resident has disclosed to TnT Mirror that the recent
fatal police shooting of a 21-year-old man in the ghetto caused
a young police officer of East Indian descent to break down in tears
on the scene.
According to the eyewitness, after the “hit” was called
on Akaiho “Rubin” Atiba, who had been dragged seconds
before, out of the narrow dirt track by another officer, the shaken
officer couldn’t control his emotions.
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AKAIHO
“Rubin”
ATIBA - killed.
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“The crying officer had to be consoled by another officer
and taken away,” related the young man who begged not to be
identified.
Atiba, who police said was a main suspect in several murders, subsequently
succumbed to gunshot wounds at the Port of Spain General Hospital.
On that day, there was police reports say, shootout between cops,
soldiers and Rubin, a charge that has since been denied by residents,
who claimed that, “at the time the military raided the Beetham
(January 12) Rubin was bare back and wearing a sliders.
“The fact that the young policeman cried said a lot to us;
his colleagues could have handled the whole situation differently.
“Rubin could have been arrested and taken in but they didn’t
want that; they want to carry out bodies whenever they come in here.”
“It was a cold-blooded murder pure and simple,” he insisted,
a view, he said, that was shared by the majority of Beetham residents.
“But prior to the killing we saw one police officer striking
another young man named Roston ‘Bobo’ Guy,” he
added.
The cops suspected that Bobo, who sells aquarium fish for a living,
might have been earlier in the company of Rubin.
“They hit him a gun butt to his face.
“They even let go some shots by his foot to try to get him
to talk and say where Rubin was hiding.”
He insisted that, to date, Bobo, remains in police custody and that
no charges have, as yet, been laid against him.
“The majority of fish in his make-shift fish farm in his shack
have since died out,” the resident revealed.
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That early morning Beetham drama has
convinced the young men of the area that police and army
have their guns trained on them.
And as far as they are concerned, they are all marked
for death and chances of survival are slim, once police
get them first.
“But more police will have to cry, our blood will
be on their hands,” said the resident.
“Rubin’s death has forged an even closer unity
in this ghetto community.
“If we does break law, then the police don’t
uphold it either; we don’t trust them and nothing
makes sense any more.”
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ROSTON
“Bobo” GUY’s now abandoned fish farm.
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Some of the residents told Mirror that they are all prepared to die
and are ready to do so almost immediately.
“We can’t take this police bad treatment anymore, so if
it means death we will take it as it comes,” said an emotional
youth named Nigel.
“It’s advantage and we are going to fight back; we
are fed-up.”
The 28-year-old handyman, who said he was born and bred on the Beetham,
which was the only place he knows as home, deemed the police as “legal
murderers”.
“They must not be allowed to come
in here and identify people and kill them just so,” he demanded.
Roger Bobb, 23, told Mirror he was one of the persons the police came
looking for that morning.
He was a close friend of Rubin.
He said he was lucky to be alive today.
He recalled that “countless amount” of police and army
officers, with and without masks, armed to kill, stormed the area
and asked for three names in particular.
“They kept
asking for Rubin, Roger and Cass,” he stated.
“They
start grabbing and beating people.
“Rasta-haired ‘Bobo’
was one of those badly beaten.”
“They beat him;
pull out some of his locks and kept asking him what he see, in relation
to how they kill Rubin” other residents told Mirror.
One eyewitness to the melee alleged that he heard when police ordered
the hit on Rubin.
“Kill, that is Rubin, he have to
dead, kill him,” is what the eyewitness said he heard an officer
say when they dragged out the hapless man on the dirt track.
“They say they want no prisoners when they come in here.”
He said it was the drugs that fuelled the “war” between
police and the ghetto.
“It have certain persons who
deal in drugs with us here, high in society people, who ‘fraid
to come in here so they send police for us,” it was revealed.
All the other young men under the tent supported his view.
Another resident admitted that many young men in the ghetto sell drugs
for certain men on the outside.
“The war does start
when discrepancies arise, little misunderstandings here and there
over money,” he stated.
“When they are owing
us, they know they can’t walk in here.
“Plenty
of them owing we money, things go sour and they know what will play
out, so instead of coming themselves they send in the police who come
straight for us.
“Why else when they come in here they
come calling out people by name.
“Why do they tell
us they come to take back Trinidad?
“Why do they say
they want no prisoners?
“Is kill they coming to kill.”
They swore to Mirror that they don’t encourage cocaine in the
area.
“Coke brings a certain kind of people; it does
encourage sprangers, and it does spoil a village,” they told
Mirror. “We does smoke and sell weed, do we gambling …”
“We have no guns in here or else they would find it.”
They described certain cops as belonging to a “death squad”.
“It is a batch of eight officers who drive around the Beetham
shooting,” another resident added.
“They drive
up and down the Priority and ‘buss’ shots in the air”
as they try to intimidate us.
“But I’m warning
them,” groaned a highly emotional Nigel, “there will be
repercussions.
“We know they coming back because the
job isn’t finished as yet.”
The residents said they are faced with much persecution.
“They want to finish off everybody in here,” Mirror was
told.
“They want to make Beetham look like the baddest.”
The villagers noted that there are endless children living in the
ghetto.
“This is not good for them and all they are
creating is more hate for the system,” added an elder “The
Beetham is crying.” |
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