Son of man killed by police: He went hunting

FIVE days after the police killed his father, Jared Thorington said he is trusting God for guidance on how to proceed after burying him.

Last Saturday police killed three people who allegedly shot at them in Couva.

Police reported that at about 12.30 pm on September 10, officers on an exercise in Couva, tried to stop a silver-grey Isuzu Dmax van on Esperanza Road.

Police said the occupants of the van shot at them and they shot back, hitting Phillip “The Boss” Boodram of Fifth Street, Dow Village, California; Gerard Thorington, 53, of Goodwill Road, Enterprise; and 17-year-old Maalik Paul of Railway Road, Couva. All three were taken to the Couva Health Facility, where they were declared dead on arrival.

A fourth man who was in the van escaped, police said.

Thorington described his father as a man who “have he ways.” Asked to explain, he said his father was known to be hasty at times, but never to the point that he would shoot at police.

Asked why his father was with Boodram, Thorington said the two had been friends since childhood.

“Phillip was a lifelong friend of my father. We never knew him (Boodram) to be all this what they are saying about him, how he was a drug dealer. He and my father were like brothers ever since.

"Even when he (Boodram) was incarcerated my father would check up on him because their friendship was always close.”

“That day (Saturday) my father went hunting. All the years I know my father, I know him as a fisherman and a hunter. He was always in the bush.

"I don’t know my father to be on that (criminality). If he and Phillip together, is family time.”

Boodram, along with Roger Mootoo, Ricky Singh, Kerwin Williams and Aaron “Arc Eye” Grappie, was found guilty of manslaughter in 2017. They were sentenced to a 28-year-term for the kidnapping and death of San Juan businesswoman Samdaye Rampersad.

In June they were freed after the Appeal Court agreed the trial judge erred.

It was the men’s third trial, after the previous two ended in hung juries.

Thorington added: “Right now we are focusing on burying my father. There is a backlog at the Forensic Science Centre that is preventing the autopsies, because the bodies have not been brought there as yet.”

"Everyone is in a state of grief right now. We are praying. We are staying strong by the grace of God.

"After the burial the family will pray and decide what the next step will be.”

Thorington said while he questioned how he and his two sisters were going to get justice for their father, he had renewed hope in the Professional Standards Bureau after seeing police officers being charged with murder in previous cases. He said he will consider going to the PSB and the Police Complaints Authority after his father is laid to rest.

He recalled that they had improved their relationship before his father’s birthday in August.

“The last memory I had with my father was me and him reasoning. We had a kinda rocky relationship, but yeah, that day we just sit down and mend that.”

Thorington said the family is welcoming prayer as they wait to bury his father.

Paul’s mother Magilta Dujon told Newsday on Monday that her son, a form five student of Southern Tuition Centre, called her an hour before he was shot and told her he was on his way home and was getting a drop. He did not say from whom.

She said her son occasionally did yard work for Boodram.