Traumatised after seeing their father, Adelle Gilbert, shot dead by police, Eli and Elijah Gilbert sat trembling on the steps of their San Fernando home yesterday, while relatives hurled obscenities at the police.
With their guns ready, the uniformed officers took their stance on top of a hill at Carlton Lane, where Adelle Gilbert was shot twice about the body following a chase with police near his home. Angry residents converged around the officers threatening retribution while the weeping children looked on.
One woman went down on her knees, kissed her fingers and then raised it to the heavens. In an ominous tone she said: “All you is dogs. We have the video. You killed an innocent man. You will pay. Just like how (name called) in jail suffering, you will go to jail too or you will die.”
The officers remained silent.
Cousin Kyle Thompson said Gilbert was working on a community Housing Development Corporation (HDC) project nearby around midday when he noticed a drone flying overhead. Thompson claimed the drone was being controlled by a plainclothes police officer who was on top of a nearby building.
“Adelle went and asked the man why he flying a drone but he didn’t know he was a police. Then the police came off the building and a whole set of police came down here and surrounded the place.
“Adelle start to run when he see the police and they fired. He picked up two shots to his chest and then they pelt him in the van and drive off,” Thompson recalled
Gilbert’s common-law wife, Aliesha Richards, saw what was happening and tried to intervene, Thompson said.
A witness, who requested anonymity, claimed a policeman cuffed Richards on her face, giving her a black eye in front of the two children.
“It hard. Look at these children crying. Who going to mind them now?” the witness cried.
Gilbert’s brother, Joel Gilbert, accused police of placing a hit on Gilbert’s life.
“They always looking for him. Last month they threatened him. They used to tell me that I go pick up a bullet for my brother because I look like him, except he is fairer,” Joel recalled.
Saying the death was an injustice, Joel said Carlton Lane residents were being victimised by the police. A few residents went to the office of San Fernando West MP Faris Al-Rawi to lodge a complaint about police brutality.
However, a senior officer said Gilbert was carrying a gun and had fired upon the police. The weapon was retrieved by the officers.
The senior investigator said two warrants were out for Gilbert for escaping lawful custody and trafficking cocaine.
Saying Gilbert was a person of interest in a recent murder, the investigator said the dead man was responsible for several shootings at Carlton Lane and Embacadere. He was described as a priority offender in South who had been on the run for some time.
An autopsy is scheduled to be done on the body today at the Forensic Science Centre, St James. Investigations are continuing.