Dad demands police training for mental health response | Local News | trinidadexpress.com
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A father yesterday called for police officers to be trained to handle people with mental health conditions, after his son was shot and killed by a municipal officer on Friday afternoon.
“He needed help and they kill him,” Cleophas Noel said of his son, Elijah Noel.
Cleophas said Elijah, 20, was schizophrenic.
His father said on Friday, both of them were at home when around 1.30 p.m., Elijah started holding his head and screaming.
‘They took him away from me’: Cleophas Noel, father of Elijah Noel who was shot and killed by police officers in the Glenroy Housing Development, Princes Town, on Friday, displays his son’s medication for reporters at his Princes Town home yesterday.
—Photo: TREVOR WATSON
He ran out to the road and headed away from their home at Glenroy Housing Settlement in Princes Town.
Cleophas said he put on slippers and went after his son.
He then heard rapid shots, and soon after saw a police officer standing over his son.
“I tried my best. I am 60 years old. How fast I could move?… because I tried to get there to let people know he not well and he getting an episode, to help him,” the father said.
Cleophas said Elijah was still alive when he arrived, but he was held by his hands and feet and thrown into the tray of a police vehicle.
He was taken to the Princes Town District Health Facility.
Cleophas said he was pronounced dead on arrival at the facility.
Several people in the community yesterday told members of the media that Elijah was unarmed when he was shot twice in the chest and once in the neck. Cleophas said the same.
“At the hospital, the officer say he advanced. But you are a trained officer. If he advanced, you have a lethal weapon in your hand, but you don’t have to use it as a lethal weapon. You could shoot his legs; you could have arrested him. It have things you could have done—(but) you hit a kill shot…They just take him away from me. It hard.”
He said an officer told him a car was heading along the road and his son crashed into it and broke off a mirror.
Two police officers who were in their vehicle, escorting a rig, stopped, and Elijah was shot afterward.
A tearful Cleophas said during an interview at his home:
“We need to get some officers that could detect these things. That boy was clearly asking for help. He had no weapon; he was bare-feet; he was in trouble. He had to come from somewhere…He wasn’t no crazy vagrant; he was properly well loved…He needed help. And instead of helping him, they kill him. That was a lethal shot.”
The father, who is a driver with the Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC), said his life revolved around Elijah and, after his son’s last episode, he almost suffered a stroke.
He took some time off to be with the second of his three children.
Cleophas said Friday was not the first time Elijah had such an episode. It first happened when he was in primary school.
Sometime thereafter he was told his son had an imbalance in his brain, and medication was prescribed.
He said the 20-year-old had been taking the tablets up until the day he was killed.
“He never hurt nobody. Never, ever. Never violent.”
He said he will be seeking justice for Elijah.
Police: He acted aggressively
In a release, the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service said officers attached to the Princes Town Municipal Police Station were on escort duty along Buen Intento Road, Princes Town, when they were alerted by a woman who sought their assistance.
Their investigations found that a man had damaged the car.
The release said:
“The female police officer approached (Elijah) and identified herself by means of her Trinidad and Tobago Municipal Police Service identification badge, and the other female officer did likewise. The deceased began acting aggressively towards the officer, who retreated and called out to the man, asking him to stop.”
The police continued describing the events:
“It was reported that the man kept menacingly advancing towards the officers, who continued to retreat; and the said man then, on reaching about three feet away from the officer, launched at the woman police, coming into contact with the firearm she was holding in her hand.
“A brief struggle ensued and a loud explosion was heard.
“The officer retreated again, and the man kept shouting and advancing.
“The officer became fearful for her life, and in keeping with the use of force policy, fired two rounds in the direction of the said man, who then fell to the ground suffering from a gunshot injury,” the TTPS said.
The statement said the officers tried to help the bleeding man and he was immediately taken to the Princes Town Health Facility, where he was pronounced dead.
The officers were also examined and were advised to seek psychiatric counselling at the San Fernando General Hospital, the release said.
