Chad Joseph

Chad Joseph was a 26-year-old man from Las Cuevas, Trinidad, who was killed on October 14, 2025, in a US military strike on a boat in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Venezuela. He was one of six men killed in the incident, which the US government alleges involved drug smuggling. Joseph is newsworthy because his family, along with the family of Rishi Samaroo (another Trinidadian man killed in the same strike), has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the US government in Boston's federal court. The lawsuit challenges the legality of the Trump administration's policy of extrajudicial killings of suspected drug smugglers at sea. The case is significant as it raises questions about the use of military force in international waters and the accountability of the US government for civilian casualties in such operations.