St Paul Street residents claim police brutality after arrest

A 24-year-old St Paul Street, Port of Spain mother is accusing the police of brutality after they kicked down her door on Friday morning and damaged her stove after a policeman was attacked.

The woman, who asked not to be named, said she and other residents of St Paul Street Plannings were looking on from their balconies when police came to search various apartments.

During this exercise police and residents argued with each other, with video recordings showing officers shining their flashlights towards those recording them, including the woman.

While both police and residents were recording, someone threw a metal chair at a policeman, hitting him. He was named in a police report as a PC Smith.

A video recording by the woman appears to show the chair hitting the officer, at which she broke into raucous laughter. Then gunshots are heard and she hurries into her apartment for safety.

Another video she recorded showed the feet of two men in what appeared to be police tactical wear. The mother of four is heard telling someone to put the lights on so that "they" (presumably the police) could see the children in the room.

"I don't give a f--k about your children," a voice is heard shouting from the direction of the men in tactical wear.

The woman and a man are heard telling the police the chair came from another building, while one agitated male voice is heard shouting, "Where all the talks now?"

The rest of the three-minute-22-second video is filled with expletives, coming from male voices, with one instructing the woman, "Take yuh f--king child and go outside," as she sat on a red bunk bed screaming about the children, including a newborn.

Throughout the video, the woman is heard saying, "Officers, look my children here," and, "That chair come from another apartment."

The woman claimed her boyfriend was beaten and his cellphone destroyed, and her front door and stove damaged after the police entered her apartment. She told Newsday she believed she was targeted because she laughed after the chair was thrown, but swore on the lives of her children that she had nothing to do with the incident.

A police report said the officers went to St Paul Street around 9 pm on Thursday with search warrants for several men and arrested one man for possession of a gun, and others were arrested for various other offences. While they were leaving, police claimed they heard several "loud explosions," presumably meaning gunshots, and saw three men "in the distance" firing at them. They reportedly took cover and shot back.

"Simultaneously PC Smith who was recording the activities was struck with a chair that was thrown from an apartment within one of the buildings," the report said.

None of the videos seen by Newsday with the chair hitting PC Smith included any loud explosions until after the chair was thrown.

Smith, who was hit in the "pelvic area," was taken to the Port of Spain General Hospital, where he was examined and discharged.

Police said they made checks in relation to the chair being thrown, and a 31-year-old man from Duke Street was arrested at an apartment in relation to the assault on Smith and recent reports of shootings.

Both the woman and the police said the incident involving the chair took place around 12.35 am on Friday.