WPC’s car among five firebombed in Four Roads

A police officer who lives at the Chaconia Crescent Housing Development, Four Roads, Diego Martin, is threatening legal action against the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) if it fails to secure the development, after five cars were firebombed there on Wednesday morning.

WPC Jamilla Phillip spoke to Newsday at the scene as she held up the burnt remains of $1,200 worth of new schoolbooks that had been in the damaged car.

She believes a man living in the area is responsible for this and similar incidents over the years, and says reports to the police and HDC have gone ignored.

She said, “When I got through with an HDC home seven years ago, it was a dream come true,
but I am paying to live a nightmare. I advise people to buy a piece of land and don’t go to any HDC place.”

Years ago, Phillips said, her family’s apartment was broken into and faeces was thrown around it.

Last January, her car was firebombed. No one was arrested.

“Only the inside seats were burnt, so they (police) processed it, and I was still about to drive it... Now, with this, we have done all that we could. We have exhausted all avenues criminally, civilly and otherwise and this person is gaslighting his way through the process.” Then on Wednesday, around 2 am, CCTV showed unknown men entering the compound and firebombing three cars in the carpark. Two other vehicles were also affected, and damage reportedly totalled over $150,000.

She believes the same man is behind this incident and is calling on the HDC for relocation or compensation.

Police said a suspect has been arrested and is being questioned.

Over the past week, Phillip said, the man argued with tenants several times.

“No one else in here is in any ongoing feud here. The police said their hands are tied, and they are fed up with him, which is a lacklustre approach, but they would have, at some point in time, come and warned him. This did not help.

“People would have continuously gone into HDC and expressed concern for their safety and all the different things that are happening.

“It’s such a coincidence that every person he got into an altercation with over the past week, their cars have been firebombed.”

The mother of five said the same man had stabbed her husband last year
and that matter is now before the court.

She is disappointed by what she described as a lack of concern among officials at HDC about resolving the problem.

“No proper investigation, and now it has snowballed out of control, where this person thinks he has the right to come and cause havoc. I have criminal matters with this person.

“What right HDC has to have a social, legal and security department and something like this has to reach to this extent?"

“The cameras showed my car was lit first. Obviously, it was done in malice by somebody who has a vendetta.”

She said the HDC needs to “come forward and show us all the efforts they have been making since the first firebombing incident and all the complaints sent to them on this individual.”

She challenged the HDC to convince residents it has done all in its power to have those past complaints addressed.

Phillip forthrightly said she has also lost faith in the ability of her colleagues at the Four Roads Police Station, just a stone’s throw away.

Calls and an e-mail to the HDC’s managing director Jayselle McFarlane went unanswered.

Police at the Four Roads station did not want to comment.

Police public relations officer Insp Michelle Lewis and head of the Port of Spain and Western Divisions ACP William Nurse could not be reached for comment.