Mom: Cop was trigger-happy

DESPITE her caution to police that her son was bipolar and mentally unstable, Pamela Stuart-Roopchand says a “trigger-happy” policeman kicked down the door to her son’s room and shot him dead on Tuesday.

At her Bel Air Road Extension, La Romaine home yesterday, Roopchand told Newsday about the incident which left her only child, 26-year-old Colin, dead.

Roopchand said she asked neighbours, at around 5.30 pm, to contact police after Colin began behaving in an abusive manner towards her.

She said he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2015 and has been receiving monthly injections since.

Colin was not administered any injection in March, and when he began acting out on Tuesday, Roopchand said she made several attempts to contact the doctor before contacting police.

“The doctor never came,” she said. “There were incidents in the past where Colin would misbehave and the doctor would come and inject him and he would go to bed quietly.”

During Tuesday’s episode, Colin bit his mother on her face.

“I called out to the neighbour to call the police for me because he was not listening and it seems as though they were somewhere in the area because they came very quickly.”

She said she left the house about five minutes before the police came.

“I was going across by my neighbour when the police pulled up and I told them ‘My son is mentally unstable and he is bipolar, please talk to him and get him to calm down.’”

But several minutes later, Roopchand said the police ran out of the house, and when she asked about Colin, one officer told her, “He is fine.” It wasn’t until she saw crime scene officers arrive that Roopchand realised her son was dead.

“They told me it was a crime scene and I could not enter. They left him there on the cold ground for over three hours. A trigger-happy cop killed my son, why didn’t he shoot him in the foot or something?”

She disputed rumors that Colin was armed with a cutlass when officers broke down his door.

“I don’t even have a cutlass in this house, I only keep one small knife in the kitchen and he didn’t have that.”