Getting Away with Murder: Reflection on Policing in the Trinidadian City

ABSTRACT

On the evening of Friday, September 11th, 2020, news that Cedric "Burkie" Burke had died started spreading across social media. According to newspaper reports, Burke went to Westshore Medical Hospital (a private facility in Trinidad), after having been sick for a week, then was transferred to several different hospitals, and eventually was sent to the Couva Medical & Multi-training facility where he passed away. Since the Couva Hospital has been dedicated to the treatment of COVID-19 patients, the public surmised that Burke had died from the virus before the cause of death was officially announced. However, shortly after news media outlets confirmed that Burke died from COVID-19, his relatives revealed to the press that they suspected that his untimely death was the result of malfeasance, not an act of fate. They supported their suspicions with details they asserted that he appeared healthy the morning of his death, and he had called shortly before he passed away to inform his family that he had been given a liquid to ingest that made him feel strange.While the family's lawyers started drafting legal documents to obtain Burke's body for a private autopsy to determine the "true" cause of Burke's death, people on social media gave their hypothesis of the outcome of the case. Reading between the lines of the family's claims, people produced memes accusing Commissioner of Police, Gary Griffith, of poisoning Burke. The memes were made in jest. Still citizens on social media wondered if Burke, who had survived multiple assassination attempts and evaded prosecution for alleged illicit activities several times, could really have been defeated by a virus. In some ways, a conspiracy by state actors to murder Burke seemed a more plausible end for such a notorious figure.Burke first drew public attention when Prime Minister Keith Rowley fired his Minister of Public Administration, Marlene McDonald, after Burke attended her swearing-in ceremony in 2017 as the plus-one of one of her guests. McDonald welcomed Burke to the event as a businessman and...