Jensen La Vende 

Se­nior Re­porter 

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt 

Sea Lots res­i­dents from Pi­o­neer Dri­ve and Pro­duc­tion Av­enue are blam­ing one an­oth­er for the on­go­ing ten­sions in the area.  

Di­vid­ed by the St Ann’s Riv­er, the com­mu­ni­ty which has al­ways been con­sid­ered “one” is now splin­tered in­to three, which all res­i­dents said was based on “non­sense.” 

The ten­sion in the com­mu­ni­ty es­ca­lat­ed on Car­ni­val Mon­day re­sult­ing in Pro­duc­tion Dri­ve be­ing re­ferred to as Sea Lots East, Pi­o­neer Dri­ve turned to Sea Lots West, and the area clos­est to the Beetham High­way now called Sea Lots Cen­tral. When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the area yes­ter­day, res­i­dents said they nev­er ac­cept­ed this di­vi­sion as po­lice of­fi­cers pa­trolled the com­mu­ni­ty.

But res­i­dents in both Pi­o­neer Dri­ve, which al­so en­com­pass­es the area along the high­way, and Pro­duc­tion Av­enue dis­missed the frag­men­ta­tion of their once unit­ed com­mu­ni­ty. 

At Pro­duc­tion Av­enue, res­i­dents there said the con­tention be­gan when Pi­o­neer Dri­ve res­i­dents came across the riv­er and at­tacked them dur­ing the J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions. The res­i­dents claimed they were yet to re­tal­i­ate, even though they had the means to do so. 

Like­wise, Pi­o­neer Dri­ve res­i­dents claimed they were the ones at­tacked first and if they want­ed to, they could re­tal­i­ate more ag­gres­sive­ly.  

Res­i­dents did not want to speak on cam­era. At Pi­o­neer Dri­ve, res­i­dents who spoke with Guardian Me­dia scoffed at the idea that they first at­tacked their neigh­bours. 

“My son couldn’t go to col­lect his pay to­day, is I had to go with him be­cause dem on dat side team up with dem by the high­way and block we in,” one woman said. 

An­oth­er woman said Pro­duc­tion Av­enue res­i­dents were team­ing up with what she re­ferred to as Sea Lots West to “block them in.” 

Coun­cil­lor, for what is be­ing dubbed Sea Lots West, Den­nis Bris­tol said he does not ex­pect the ten­sion to es­ca­late but will be mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion. He said he was wait­ing for the vi­o­lence to ease be­fore re­turn­ing to the com­mu­ni­ty to find out for him­self what trig­gered the en­tire in­ci­dent.

Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for the area Kei­th Scot­land told a ra­dio pro­gramme that the in­fight­ing was not as a re­sult of State con­tracts. 

Res­i­dents on all sides agreed to this. They dubbed the dis­pute “non­sense.”

One woman, at Pro­duc­tion Av­enue, said she was tired of the fight­ing and want­ed peace. She called on those spread­ing lies and fu­elling the un­rest, to stop. 

“Noth­ing is caus­ing this prob­lem. Dem alone on their own men­ace. Dem alone re­tal­i­at­ing and caus­ing their own con­flict and bac­cha­nal. This bac­cha­nal could stop. It could stop. It had­da stop be­cause on­ly in­no­cent peo­ple get­ting in­jured and get­ting dam­aged.” 

One of those in­jured was an­oth­er Pro­duc­tion Av­enue res­i­dent who was shot in the right thigh. He said he was re­turn­ing home on Car­ni­val Mon­day night when he heard gun­shots and felt a burn­ing sen­sa­tion and ran off. 

He and oth­ers claimed that res­i­dents of Pi­o­neer Dri­ve were in ca­hoots with the po­lice to give Pro­duc­tion Av­enue res­i­dents a bad name. This claim was de­nied by both the po­lice and Pi­o­neer Dri­ve res­i­dents. 

Guardian Me­dia was told that there was an un­der­ly­ing con­flict in Sea Lots among some over who should take con­trol of the area fol­low­ing the death of com­mu­ni­ty leader Cedric Burke in 2020.