As Haitian gangs expand control, cop's family is left shaken
BY MEGAN JANETSKY ASSOCIATED PRESS
UPDATED JANUARY 22, 2023 10:46 AM
A member of the national police controls security on a street in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023. One of Haiti's gangs stormed a key part of the capital, Port-Au-Prince, and battled with police throughout the day, leaving at least three officers dead and another missing. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
ODELYN JOSEPH AP
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI
Every day when Marie Carmel Daniel's husband put on his flak vest and walked out the door for another day of fighting Haiti's gangs, she wondered if he would come home that night.
Friday was the day her smiling spouse of 18 years, Ricken Staniclasse, didn't.
One of the country's nearly 200 gangs ambushed his police unit that morning, sending gunfire echoing through the streets in an unexpected area — a mansion-lined stretch of the country's capital, Port-au-Prince.
A gang led by Lionel Lazarre battled the police patrol under the sweltering Caribbean heat as officers desperately called for backup. But help never came, the country’s police union said.
The fighting killed three officers, hospitalized a fourth with bullet wounds and left the 44-year-old Staniclasse missing.
. . .
While the United Nations estimates that 60% of Port-Au-Prince is controlled by the gangs, nowadays most Haitians on the street reckon that number is closer to 100%. Haiti has struggled with endemic gang violence for years, but the country spiraled into lawlessness after the 2021 killing of former President Jovenel Moïse.
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