TT crime stars in the UK
By Andre Bagoo Sunday, July 6 2008
Trinidad Newsday
WITH THE murder rate spiralling to new highs, crime in Trinidad and Tobago is now making waves internationally with a new UK documentary highlighting the work of policemen in this country as they come to grips with the worsening situation.
Caribbean Cops, an eight-part factual television series, features gruesome footage of crime scenes in this country gathered by the film-makers who had the cooperation of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service.
The series, which began airing to potentially millions of viewers on the UK’s Virgin 1 cable station on May 11 and which is part of the channel’s summer line-up, profiles police officers from Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and St Lucia. The film’s producers, October Films, were granted exclusive access to on-duty police officers as they covered their beats in all three countries. But Trinidad and Tobago, in particular, is singled out for its high murder rate.
“Last year, there were nearly four hundred murders in Trinidad and Tobago, giving it a murder rate twenty-four times higher than the UK,” says Shaun Parkes, the narrator of the pilot episode which was seen by this reporter.
The episode provides graphic footage from a murder scene at an undisclosed location in this country. The film-makers follow Ag Corp Ingar Mangla, an E-999 officer, right into a cordoned-off crime scene area, showing footage of blood on walls, human brain matter on the floor and even interviewing a crime scene investigations (CSI) officer, clothed in all white, a familiar figure today.
“As the sun sets over the Caribbean island of Trinidad, Acting Corporal Ingar Mangla from the Emergency Rapid Response Unit is just starting his shift,” the narrator says thirty minutes into the 43-minute episode. “He’s racing to the scene of a gunfight that’s ended in murder.”
Viewers see a dark street with curious onlookers and the outside of an apartment. Inside red sneakers lay in a dark pool of blood. Blood is spattered on walls.
“It has been confirmed that it is a homicide,” Mangla tells the film-makers, as images of bloodied floors and furniture briefly flash across the screen. There is footage of an overhead police helicopter as well as a crime scene investigations (CSI) officer working in some bushes, clothed in the all-white CSI uniform.
“An armed man has fled the scene leaving behind one dead man and a seriously injured woman caught in the crossfire. The body of the dead man is lying on the third floor of a block of flats. The victims have been identified, but the shooting has now turned personal: the wounded woman is a police officer’s mother. She’s been rushed to hospital with a gunshot wound, she’s one of their own,” the narrator says.
“Mangla is clearly shocked.”
“Neighbours watch on as the body of the dead man is removed from the building and taken away. As the forensic team continues to collect evidence, Mangla enters the crime scene and pieces together what’s happened.”
“A group of men armed with automatic weapons and a shotgun ambushed the victim and opened fire…They chased him to the top of the staircase and shot him in the head at point-blank range,” the narrator surmises.
The film-makers then follow a uniformed CSI expert right into the crime scene, in apparent contravention of the police’s new crime scene management rules.
“Apparently he was shot in this vicinity here and fell downstairs,” says the unnamed crime scene expert, also clothed in all white but with his mask pulled from his face as he points to the blood spatters on the wall.
“There appears to be brain matter all on the ground,” are the chilling words.
The film-makers then give us close-up shots of what appear to be pieces of a human brain on the floor at the scene.
Tobago, too, does not escape the film-makers attention, but this time there is no gruesome crime scene footage.
“Over in Tobago, there’s trouble in paradise,” the narrators says before following Cpl Oliver Clarke from Crown Point Police Station as he covers a break-in at an English woman’s holiday villa on the island. Clarke tells the film-makers that “pipers” are responsible.
“I prefer to stay in a villa because I like the freedom, I like to mix with local people and eat local food. But I think if we did come back here it will be to a hotel. This has really scared me,” the woman, identified as “Julie”, says.
But there is also a light side to the depiction of crime in Tobago, as the film-makers also follow Corp Samuel Quamina and PC Maurice Goddard, bicycle beach patrol officers at Store Bay.
“Dawn is breaking over the island of Tobago. It’s one of the more exclusive Caribbean islands with a population just over 50,000. It prides itself on being a laid back paradise. Its unspoilt beaches and delicious local rum ensure that it is a big hit with us Brits,” the narrator says.
“Samuel is a God fearing man, but he’s also devoted to his duties,” the narrator says of Quamina as images of him straddled by several women in bikinis on the popular tourist beach appear on the screen. “I enjoy this part of the job,” Quamina says, in uniform, putting his arm around the waist of a woman, “this is a real nice part of the job, having the nice ladies around you in Store Bay. It’s good! It’s a great job I think it’s the best job in the world.”
Quamina and Goddard go on to search three men on the beach for cannabis in front of the cameras. One of the men, is made to remove his trousers and has his genitals exposed as one of the officers searches unsuccessfully for the weed.
“I ain’t got nothing, ain’t got nothing!” the man protests, his face, like the faces of his two other companions, blurred out. The closing credits of the programme thanks the TTPS as well as the Jamaican Constabulary Force and the Royal St Lucia Police Force. Newsday understands that outgoing police commissioner Trevor Paul was approached by the film-makers since May last year over the project and gave it the go-ahead, with filming starting in Trinidad in December
and continuing during the Carnival season.
Virgin 1 is the flagship television channel broadcast by Virgin Media Television. The channel was launched on October 1, 2007 on the Freeview, Virgin Media and Sky digital television services. The channel announced the commissioning of the series, which ran in the UK primetime on Sundays from May 11 to June 29, with repeats on Wednesdays, on April 9.
October Films, the series’ producers, is a UK film company with offices in Manchester and London, which has developed a reputation for producing “factual programming.” It has produced several award-winning series, including, Fighting the Taliban, which was nominated for a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award this year.
“Shot on location in the idyllic paradise islands of the Caribbean, (Caribbean Cops) captures all the drama of policing some of the world’s favourite holiday destinations,” reads the production company’s website. The series also shows footage of Trinidad Carnival and police in action in Jamaica as they perform drug busts as well as police patrolling in St Lucia.
According to a Virgin 1 weblog, “highlights of this eight-part series include: the capture of French drug smugglers intercepted at sea; the detection and eradication of hidden cannabis fields; and drug swoops on the tourist beaches of Jamaica. Alongside the standard police work, there are also plenty of opportunities for the Caribbean cops to enjoy themselves – the show sees them policing the Trinidad Carnival and the annual Reggae Festival to celebrate Bob Marley’s birthday, and even preparing for the festivities of Prince Charles’ visit to St Lucia.”
The series has made waves on the online internet community, with one Caribbean chat-room user describing the series as gritty and dangerous, set in “these islands
