A 32-YEAR-OLD father of two wants to know who will compensate him for extensive damages to his home following a police/army raid.

Al Bartholomew claims to have had his galvanise fence torn down, one of his five guard dogs blinded with pepper spray and his house ransacked and boards ripped out when a joint police/army patrol stormed his Picton Road, Laventille property last Sunday.

Bartholomew, a self-employed straightener/painter, also wants to know who stole the $6,000 cash he had in an overhead cupboard and whether it would be returned.

He went on to express his disappointment over the way the military operated, especially as no one was at home at the time.

“Who will pay for all this?” he asked, as tears welled up in his eyes.

“They pepper spray my dog and blind him, now I have to put him to sleep.”

Bartholomew said he purchased the male Rottweiler as a pup for $3,500 and raised it solely for the purpose of breeding.

“I’ve been doing well,” he added,

“Look this female here just gave birth to a brand new litter,” he declared as he pointed to a dog lying at a corner.

“He fathered those pups; now I have to take out my precious dog”.

He said as a result of the raid on his home, all plans for renovations on the newly-acquired property have been set back.

Bartholomew recently purchased the property on which there are two houses in need of repairs.

“I am always in and out of here,” he went on,

“Because of renovation, my wife stays elsewhere until the place becomes more habitable.”

Bartholomew said money he had been saving to begin extensive repairs now had to be used to erect a new fence.

“I’m putting up bricks and barbed wire let them break that down.”

He claimed that the only reason the $6,000 was in that house was because he had forgotten the keys for his other house at home.

“So I rested it there, I never expected it to go missing.”

AL BARTHOLOMEW points to his ripped
down fence.

Here he shows the damaged roof where the
military tried to gain entry.

The military also knocked out this partition.

“I wanted no confrontation with them.”

Residents told Mirror when the military landed in the area they were all ordered off the streets and inside their homes.

Bartholomew said he was shocked when he visited next day and saw his dogs in distress and the house in a mess.

“The way they attacked my dogs really hurt me.

“I spent real money on my dogs …”

While he accepted that there are negative influences in the area, Bartholomew said the military has made Laventille look bad over the years.

“They created that bad image so that they could come in here and do just what they want.

“Crime is everywhere and Laventille is no worse than anywhere in Trinidad and the world when it comes to violence.”

He said it was the second time they had visited his home.

He added that it was just five months ago, police came “just so” and arrested him on a charge of murder.

“They carried me down to the station, put me on ID parade, I was never identified and they let me go”

He said the area has its fair share of violence, but not everyone is involved.

“I don’t mind the police and army coming in to do their thing but do it the right way and leave innocent people out of it

“I never had any run-in with the law, except that time when they came and held me as a suspect.”

He wants compensation.

“I know even if I go and complain nothing will come out of it but I figure somebody must pay.”

I’m a man who trying to fix a future for my two daughters because I don’t want them to rent as I have been doing.

“I bought this property here to fix it so that we could live rent-free and be comfortable.”

All he now wants is to live in peace.

“I’m spending $9,000 to put up a wall now and I dare them to break it down and come in.”