RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Rel­a­tives of Ron­nie Alexan­der, 40, who was killed by po­lice in Tabaquite, are deny­ing claims that he was in­volved in ex­tor­tion or had any out­stand­ing war­rants.

Alexan­der was the sixth per­son to be killed by po­lice over the past week.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said Alexan­der opened fire on the po­lice short­ly be­fore 6 am at Mot­ta Street, Tabaquite, af­ter they ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant. He was tak­en to the Ch­agua­nas Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where he was pro­nounced dead.

How­ev­er, speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Alexan­der’s sis­ter, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said he moved to Tabaquite three years ago to es­cape vi­o­lence in Mor­vant.

“He came back to Tabaquite, where he grew up, to help build our moth­er’s house. He was gar­den­ing and work­ing in con­struc­tion to earn a liv­ing,” she said.

She ad­mit­ted that Alexan­der had a past con­vic­tion for kid­nap­ping at age 18 but em­pha­sised that he had turned his life around.

“He was placed on a three-year bond and fined $2,500. Since then, he had no is­sues with the law.

She dis­put­ed the po­lice ac­count, al­leg­ing that the cir­cum­stances of his death were sus­pi­cious.

“When you see the house, it’s clear he couldn’t run. The space is so small, and there’s on­ly one room down­stairs. There’s blood and what looks like brain mat­ter on the wall,” she claimed.

She al­so chal­lenged the ex­tor­tion al­le­ga­tions, say­ing the po­lice were us­ing Alexan­der’s past to dis­cred­it him.

The sis­ter al­so de­nied claims that Alexan­der was linked to a re­cent in­crease in rob­beries in Tabaquite.

“Ron­nie grew up here. He went to school here—Tabaquite Pres­by­ter­ian and then Mara­bel­la Ju­nior Sec­ondary. He was not part of any gang or crime. If peo­ple from Mor­vant are caus­ing prob­lems here, it’s not him. He stayed by him­self, work­ing and plant­i­ng,” she ex­plained.

“Af­ter his nephew died and his re­la­tion­ship end­ed, he want­ed a fresh start, so he came here to build for our fam­i­ly and fo­cus on gar­den­ing,” she said.

She called for trans­paren­cy and an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion. “I want the truth and jus­tice. They’re us­ing the kid­nap­ping case from years ago to paint a false pic­ture of him. He wasn’t in­volved in ex­tor­tion or any­thing crim­i­nal. He didn’t de­serve to die like this,” she added.

On Fri­day Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) Di­rec­tor David West re­vealed the PCA has nev­er re­ceived any footage of any po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing.

Body cam­eras were in­tro­duced to the TTPS in 2017 as a pi­lot project by then-act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams.

Last year, the po­lice ser­vice had 1,120 body cam­eras.