In 2011, Trinidad declared a state of emergency. This massive state intervention lasted for 108 days and led to the rounding up of over 7,000 people in areas the state deemed 'crime hot spots.' The government justified this action and subsequent police violence on the grounds that these measures were restoring 'the rule of law'. In this milieu of expanded policing powers, protests occasioned by police violence against lower-class black people have often garnered little sympathy. But in an improbable turn of events, six officers involved in the shooting of three young people were charged with murder at the height of the state of emergency. In 'Experiments with Power', J. Brent Crosson addresses the complex question of what 'obeah' - a special force credited with this act - is.

Previously issued in print: 2020.