Steelband clash with police at band launch leads to arrests and hospitalisation

Sev­er­al mem­bers of the Sil­ver Stars steel or­ches­tra were ar­rest­ed ear­ly this morn­ing fol­low­ing an al­leged con­fronta­tion with po­lice of­fi­cers dur­ing Tribe’s band launch cel­e­bra­tions.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the in­ci­dent oc­curred around 2 am in the North Stand area of the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, where the steel­band had been hired to close the event.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, plain-clothes of­fi­cers ap­proached the pan side and in­struct­ed them to stop play­ing. The sit­u­a­tion al­leged­ly es­ca­lat­ed when one of­fi­cer grabbed a drum­mer’s sticks and knocked over in­stru­ments, trig­ger­ing a scuf­fle be­tween po­lice and band mem­bers.