[3] After leaving the United Kingdom, Lassalle spent three weeks visiting an aunt in New York in the aftermath of the Watts riots and the assassination of Malcolm X.
[3] On April 21, 1970, amid ongoing unrest, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago declared a state of emergency and arrested most of the leadership of the Black Power movement.
When the Trinidad and Tobago regiment was summoned to the capital, Port of Spain to help enforce order[4] about half of the army,[5] led by Lassalle, Raffique Shah and other junior officers, refused to take up arms against the citizenry.
[4] Many of the soldiers were drawn from the same urban working class communities that Black Power movement drew its support from.
When the mutineers tried to leave Teteron, they were fired upon by the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard, and unwilling to engage in a fire-fight, they returned to base.
[1] Lassalle studied osteopathy, acupuncture and homeopathy and other practices of alternative medicine in the United Kingdom and later settled in Finland.