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The National Newspaper of St. Vincent and the Grenadines

THURSDAY,

MARCH 13, 2014

VOLUME 108, No.11

www.thevincentian.com

EC$1.50

Sylma ‘Codo’ Thomas died a day after police raided her home at Chateaubelair.

by NELSON A. KING naking@verizon.net; neloking@msn.com US CORREPSONDENT

Chateaubelair native, Sgt. Luke James, says that they will do all within the law to pressure the authorities to hold an independent inquiry into Thomas’s death. Below: Thomas’s brother, Chris Howe (left) served as one of the pall bearers at Thomas’s funeral procession to the cemetery.

STATING THAT HE DOES not trust the police to conduct their own probe, the United States soldier who last week spearheaded a candle light vigil in the wake of the death of a Chateaubelair woman a day after police raided her home, is now calling for an independent investigation. Sgt. Luke James, a Chateaubelair native, who is currently a logistical technician and qualified combat lifesaver with the Colorado National Guard, said he, nor the family of Sylma ‘Codo’ Thomas, 49, does not have faith in the police. Police Commissioner Michael Charles, who is also Chateaubelair-born, has promised a police probe into the matter. Funeral procession for Sylma Thomas winds through Chateaubelair’s main street towards Fitz Huges Cemetery.

Right: Cameshia Jordan, Sylma Thomas’s daughter, heads funeral procession along Chateaubelair’s main street.

“I am calling on the authorities to do an independent investigation, so we can all know if policies and procedures were followed; and, if not, to hold anyone not following them accountable,” James, a former Form 4 classmate of Thomas at the Petit Bordel Secondary School, over the hill from Chateaubelair, told THE VINCENTIAN in an exclusive interview. The ex-teacher at area schools — Chateaubelair Methodist, Fitz Hughes Government and Petit Bordel Secondary — also called for additional training and/or retraining of police officers. Continued on Page 3.


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