Fran­cis Joseph

?It was so amaz­ing that a man who had hid­den from his en­e­mies in the un­der­world could have been gunned down so easy. For Shel­don Scott, alias Crock, death came too easy. He was the leader of the John John gang and was a close as­so­ciate of Mark Guer­ra, who him­self was gunned down in 2003 by some­one close to him. Af­ter six years, Guer­ra's death re­mains un­solved.

The same thing ap­plies to Scott who was shot dead dur­ing the hec­tic Car­ni­val sea­son in 2008. Scott was no or­di­nary man...he was a hit­man ex­tra­or­di­naire who feared no one. Sources at the Homi­cide Bu­reau lost count over the num­ber of mur­ders Scott was re­spon­si­ble for. They stopped count­ing when the fig­ure reached 24. In fact, they breathed a sigh of re­lief when he was killed.

The man called Crock

Ac­cord­ing to friends, Scott, 30, was a bad boy from a very young age. Po­lice said Scott com­mit­ted his first mur­der at age 14. His moth­er, ac­cord­ing to these friends, tried with him, but he was swayed by the crim­i­nal el­e­ments and the ex­cite­ment of a fast life. Orig­i­nal­ly from Afri­ka in Laven­tille, Scott was men­tored by Guer­ra from the age of 10. He joined up with the Bev­er­ly Hills gang and be­came im­por­tant to the ones he looked up to. Very soon, he got rank and moved in style. His name be­came a house­hold one and ac­cord­ing to the po­lice, he put down sev­er­al mur­ders on gang mem­bers who be­came a li­a­bil­i­ty to the gang lead­ers. Af­ter his use­ful­ness wore off in Bev­er­ly Hills, he moved to John John and be­came a close as­so­ciate of Guer­ra. He rode shot­gun with Guer­ra, but he was nev­er seen out by him­self. He op­er­at­ed like the prover­bial thief in the night and was hard to catch. Af­ter Guer­ra's death, he moved out of Bev­er­ly Hills and formed his own gang at John John. He was able to se­cure lu­cra­tive state con­tracts in the Laven­tille area.

His name was called in a cer­tain mur­der, but he was nev­er ar­rest­ed. Po­lice be­lieve he was the gun­man to the Movie Towne in­ci­dent on June 4, 2003.

In that in­ci­dent, the tar­get was Sal­im Rasheed (Small Sal­im). But casi­no su­per­vi­sor Jil­la Bowen was killed. Rasheed and Bowen's hus­band, Adil Ghany, were shot and wound­ed. Brent Miller (Big Brent) was orig­i­nal­ly charged with that mur­der, but the charges were dropped and he was grant­ed im­mu­ni­ty to tes­ti­fy against Ja­maat al Mus­limeen leader, Yasin Abu Bakr, on charges of con­spir­a­cy to mur­der. One minute his tes­ti­mo­ny was truth­ful, and the next minute, it was not, so Bakr walked free. At the tri­al, Scott's name was called as one of the men in the car that fired the shots which killed Bowen. But for some rea­son, he was nev­er ar­rest­ed for this in­ci­dent. He con­tin­ued to roam the streets and car­ry out his in­fa­mous acts. He was ar­rest­ed in 2004 and charged with the mur­der of Ri­car­do Leonze (Top­ie) af­ter he fell out with a fe­male as­so­ciate.

That woman iden­ti­fied him and gave a state­ment to the po­lice im­pli­cat­ing Scott in the mur­der. But weeks lat­er, she re­fused to give ev­i­dence and the case col­lapsed against Scott and he was freed. In 2006, Scott was one of the 20 com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers host­ed at Crowne Plaza, Port-of-Spain, by then sports min­is­ter Roger Boynes, in an ef­fort to bro­ker a peace deal. Sev­en­teen of those lead­ers have since been killed, cut down by their as­so­ciates as the grab for pow­er con­tin­ued.

The killing

When one thought that Scott was in­vin­ci­ble, his death came swift. The fa­ther of nine chil­dren went to Fa­ti­ma Trace, Laven­tille, around 9 pm on Feb­ru­ary 4, 2008. He had gone there to drop off a pump- ac­tion shot­gun when he was con­front­ed by a lone gun­man, a per­son whom he knew. As Scott passed, the man turned around and shot him in the back of the head. Ac­cord­ing to the po­lice, Scott's head was shot off. Scott lay dead on the ground as the killer ran away. Res­i­dents, afraid as they were, still came out to see who got killed. There was sur­prise when res­i­dents re­alised it was Scott. The po­lice felt there was go­ing to be gang vi­o­lence with Scott's death. But that did not ma­te­ri­alise. The po­lice got a de­scrip­tion and name of the killer. But he was nev­er ar­rest­ed. Po­lice sources said the killer was him­self killed by the man who con­tract­ed him in the first place to kill Scott. Who was that per­son? The po­lice lips are sealed.