By Sue-Ann Wayow
A SERGEANT and a corporal are among eight officers charged for the murder of three men in Morvant in June 2020.
The officers were remanded into custody after appearing before Port-of-Spain Magistrate Brian Dabideen on Tuesday.
They were charged following advice from Director of Public Prosecutions, Roger Gaspard, SC, on Monday.
The Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) in a media release stated that the eight officers were charged with three counts of murder, arising from a fatal police-involved shooting incident, which occurred in June, 2020, in the Morvant district.
The eight charged are:
Sgt Joseph Solomon, 44, with 22 years’ service;
Cpl Charles Budri, 55, with 34 years’ service;
PC Sherwin Baptiste, 41, with 19 years’ service;
PC Colin Furlonge, 39, with 13 years’ service;
PC Vaughn St. Cyr, 39, with 11 years’ service;
PC Jameel Mohammed, 42, with 9 years’ service;
PC Sean Lord, 42, with 19 years’ service; and
PC Mark Lewis, 41, with 13 years’ service
Background
On June 27, 2020, a party of officers from the Guard and Emergency Branch and the Inter-Agency Task Force, were on an exercise at 2nd Caledonia Road, Morvant, when they stopped a gold-coloured Tiida motor vehicle with three male occupants, Joel Jacob, 38, Israel Clinton, 27 and Noel Diamond, 46, all of Morvant.
The officers alleged that during the incident, one of the occupants of the vehicle pointed a firearm at them causing them to discharge their firearms in the direction of the men. The men died at the scene.
An investigation was launched into the incident, supervised by Supt Wayne Abbott of the Financial Investigations Branch.
The men are expected to reappear in court on August 16.
