Sombre looking relatives of Theodore Whittingham adopted sister Meloy Finnaken (left) and cousin Fadian Kerr pictured in the Brissett community yesterday. Photo: Horace Hines

BRISSETT, Hanover-This normally quiet community is still traumatised following the controversial killing of 19-year-old Theodore Whittingham, a recent Cornwall College graduate, by the police.

According to the residents who staged a massive demonstration on Tuesday over the killing of Whittingham, who reportedly aimed a homemade shotgun at members of a joint/police military team on duty in the area, is another example of excessive force by the police.

"My baby is traumatised. When she was passing some of the police them she say to me, mommy them shoot him and me see blood and them going shoot me too. Then she run and grab me foot and started crying that her belly is hurting her and that said she is afraid," said a distraught mother.
According to the mother, the two year-old infant is still devastated.

However CCN liaison officer for Hanover, Constable Rohan Reid, is reporting that a joint police/military patrol acting upon information carried out an operation about 6:45 Tuesday morning in the community of Brissett, Lucea.

According to Reid, the law enforcers went to Whittingham's house where they knocked on his door which he refused to open. It is alleged that the police forcibly entered the house where Whittingham brandished a homemade shotgun which he pointed in the direction of the police.

He was subsequently shot and was rushed to the Noel Holmes Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
A search of his room revealed a homemade handgun containing one live 9mm round and two shot gun rounds in a bag under his bed.

But the residents pointed to a trail of blood which accentuated the path which led from the spot where the police service vehicle- to which "Whittingham was dragged"- was located, to the house where he was shot in his bedroom.

Blood splattered all over the ransacked room and what appeared to be two bullet holes were pointed out to the Observer West by the residents,who also made note that there were no signs on the door that the cops had gained entry to the house forcibly as they reported.

Contending that Whittingham was shot in cold-blood, the residents also pointed out that Tuesday's shooting follows closely on the heels of the police killing of his friend, Saphira 'Ratty' Mattis last month.

'One police threatened that he must kill him after they killed Ratty and them come this morning (Tuesday morning) and kill him," an angry dreadlocked man protested.
According to the police, Mattis was linked to several homicides committed in the parish last year.

The Bureau of Special Investigation (BSI) has subsequently commenced their probe into the matter.

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