Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Chan­dra­daye Maraj Adams, moth­er of re­put­ed un­der­world fig­ure Akin­ni “Dole” Adams, claims her fam­i­ly is be­ing un­fair­ly tar­get­ed by po­lice of­fi­cers af­ter a door at her home was dam­aged dur­ing a po­lice search in Sea Lots on Tues­day morn­ing.

Adams’ son was killed in Ju­ly 2019 when mem­bers of the now-dis­band­ed Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) con­front­ed him at his Sea Lots home. He had been im­pli­cat­ed in the 2017 mur­der of WPC Nyasha Joseph but nev­er charged.

The el­der Adams, 63, said she is aware of her late son’s rep­u­ta­tion as a crim­i­nal, but in­sist­ed that she lives a qui­et, law-abid­ing life with her three grand­daugh­ters.

She said on Tues­day morn­ing she awoke to loud bang­ing on the front door and re­alised that po­lice were out­side her home.

“I felt to­tal­ly em­bar­rassed about the whole sit­u­a­tion, es­pe­cial­ly know­ing the type of per­son I am who doesn’t drink or smoke or any­thing.

“This is my lifestyle, I’m not in­volved in crime or any­thing,” Adams said.

“I raised five good chil­dren in Sea Lots, I mean Dole was my son, he did what he have to do, but he wasn’t the oth­er type that peo­ple make him out to be.

“But they choose their lifestyle and I live my lifestyle. He died and he’s gone and I have here (the house) and I try to main­tain it as best as I can.”

Adams be­lieves some po­lice of­fi­cers still har­bour re­sent­ment to­wards the fam­i­ly.

“They al­ways want­ed to get in the house. They al­ways want­ed to get in­side here, that’s why I feel they broke down the door,” she said.

“Why else would they do that? We keep telling them that no crim­i­nals are here. They searched this house top to bot­tom with dogs and found noth­ing il­le­gal.”

Adams said her grand­daugh­ters, who were at home at the time of the search, were trau­ma­tised. She said she hoped the po­lice would ex­er­cise bet­ter care in the fu­ture.

How­ev­er, she does not hold any ill will against the po­lice.

“I be­lieve in the po­lice ser­vice. There are some good and oth­ers who are not. If any­thing hap­pens you still have to go to the po­lice. I have nieces and nephews who are po­lice of­fi­cers,” she said.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin said he was con­fi­dent that po­lice of­fi­cers will con­tin­ue to ex­e­cute their du­ties fair­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly, and any­one who felt ag­griev­ed can re­port their con­cerns to the po­lice or Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA). He added that when of­fi­cers en­ter a build­ing to ef­fect a search, it is done as thor­ough­ly as pos­si­ble to en­sure they achieve their ob­jec­tive and there are mech­a­nisms for peo­ple who feel the po­lice are li­able for dam­ages.

“If it is brought to me I will en­sure a prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion is done. If it is the po­lice prob­a­bly were re­spon­si­ble, there is a course of ac­tion that can be tak­en from the Com­mis­sion­er’s side to en­sure some mea­sure of com­pen­sa­tion, once it is proven that it’s re­al­ly the fault of the po­lice and not some ma­li­cious in­tent on the part of the claimant.

“What we try to do is en­sure a lev­el of fair­ness in terms of what is done and how it is done,” he said.

The PCA said re­ports were made about prop­er­ty dam­age in Sea Lots but they were un­able to con­firm the names of the per­sons who made the com­plaints.

For­mal re­ports can be sub­mit­ted to the PCA’s web­site at www.pca.org.tt, the PCA mo­bile app, or by call­ing 226-4722. Re­ports must in­clude de­tails, like the date, lo­ca­tion and any sup­port­ing ev­i­dence.