OLD MATTRESSES and tyres were used to fuel fires during a protest by Nelson Street, Port of Spain, residents on Tuesday night as they vented their rage after police officers shot and killed a boy from the area hours before.
The protest over what they described as police brutality in the killing of Thaddeaus Wade, 17, continued into the early hours of yesterday morning.
Residents dragged out old appliances and tyres, placed the items in the middle of upper Nelson Street and set the items alight during the protest. Each time they lit the items, the police doused the blaze and ordered residents back into their homes.
According to police, around 5.30 a.m. on Tuesday, they spotted a group of armed, young men in the area and told them to stop. The youths, however, did not stop and fired at the officers, who fired back, police said. Wade was hit and died on arrival at the Port of Spain General Hospital.
But one young man said around 5.30 a.m., he, Wade and a few other young people were asleep in a top-floor apartment on Nelson Street when officers from the Repeat Offenders Programme broke down their door and barged in. He said he escaped by squeezing into the ceiling of the apartment but was able to see and hear what was going on.
’I hear ’bang, bang, bang’. He (Wade) see the police and climb through a window. Police fire a shot in the ceiling and he (Wade) went on the landing (a ledge outside the window).’
He said as Wade stood outside the window, the police fired a shot at him, hitting him in the buttocks. Wade, he said, fell to the ground. Three other young men were arrested while another escaped.
Other residents spoke about seeing a bleeding Wade on the ground and officers giving each other high-fives as they stood around him. They said the police then picked him up and ’threw him’ into their SUV.
’We couldn’t do nothing,’ said a woman, ’or we woulda get pickup (shot) too’.
They further alleged the police did not take Wade to hospital immediately because when they went there to seek the young man’s interest, they were told he had not yet arrived.
’Ah hear is around nine o’clock they bring him dey, but he was already dead,’ said the visibly angry woman.
At the Forensic Science Centre in St James yesterday, Wade’s mother, who did not want to be identified, said her son had simply become involved with the wrong individuals.
’I live at Chaguanas and my ex-husband lives in La Horquetta. For years, we tried with him, but he chose to live with the wrong people and do wrong things.’
She added, ’I didn’t know it had all kinda riot and thing for my son. To be honest, he was good, but he live with the wrong people and did the wrong things. I talk to him several times. His father talk to him. His grandfather talk to him. His brother talk to him. He came from good family. He grow up in the church. He was baptised but in the end, he chose that life.’
She said she last saw her son on November 19. On that day, he had a court matter for armed robbery, she said, ’and after that he went and stay by he friends and them on Nelson Street’.
’He was in Northeastern College (in Sangre Grande) and he drop out. We real try. I actually hug him up. I knelt down. I cried but he told me, ’mamie, if I turn away, it will still happen.’ He was in too deep,’ she said.
