Derek Achong

A crip­pled gang mem­ber and a 26-year-old taxi dri­ver were mur­dered in two shoot­ings in Port-of-Spain be­tween Tues­day night and yes­ter­day morn­ing.The two mur­ders, plus that of Po­lice Cpl Ter­rance Abra­ham, raised the mur­der toll to 141 for the year.In the lat­est in­ci­dent, 40-year-old David Bish­op, of Low­er Dibe Road, Long Cir­cu­lar, St James, was shot dead near his home.

Po­lice said Bish­op was par­tial­ly crip­pled from a shoot­ing he sur­vived sev­er­al years ago and used a wheel­chair to move around.Po­lice said de­spite his dis­abil­i­ty, he was still in­volved with a gang which op­er­at­ed in his com­mu­ni­ty and had a long crim­i­nal record which in­clud­ed con­vic­tions for drug pos­ses­sion. His rel­a­tives told po­lice that around 9 am yes­ter­day, some of his friends vis­it­ed his home and left with him in a car to go to a lim­ing spot at Up­per Dibe Road.

Al­most two hours lat­er, po­lice re­ceived a re­port of gun­shots in the area. Of­fi­cers, led by In­spec­tor Hen­ry Dann, re­spond­ed and found Bish­op ly­ing on the road­way with sev­er­al gun­shot wounds to his up­per body. He was pro­nounced dead on the scene by a Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer (DMO).Po­lice be­lieve while lim­ing the group was at­tacked by a gun­man. The men scat­tered, leav­ing Bish­op be­hind and he was shot sev­er­al times. Homi­cide de­tec­tives list­ed his mur­der as gang-re­lat­ed.

A lit­tle over 12 hours be­fore Bish­op was killed, 26-year-old taxi-dri­ver Quin­cy Mar­tin was shot dead while ply­ing his car for hire near In­de­pen­dence Square, Port-of-Spain.Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, around 7.15 pm on Tues­day, Mar­tin, of Springville Av­enue, Pic­ton Quar­ry, Laven­tille, was dri­ving his Nis­san B13 along Dun­can Street when he stopped near In­de­pen­dence Square to pick up pas­sen­gers.

While he was wait­ing a gun­man, pre­tend­ing to be a pas­sen­ger, walked up to him and shot him sev­er­al times in his chest. The gun­man then ran away. Mar­tin at­tempt­ed to dri­ve away but crashed in­to two ve­hi­cles parked at the side of the road. He died on the scene.Of­fi­cers from the Port-of-Spain CID, led by ASP Ajith Per­sad and In­sp Sa­hadeo Singh, vis­it­ed the scene and searched the area for the sus­pect but was un­suc­cess­ful.

In an in­ter­view at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day, Mar­tin's girl­friend, Can­dace Si­mon, said he had been ply­ing his taxi for nine years."He bought his own car and the next step was to have a child. We spent time to­geth­er on Sun­day and I spoke with him Mon­day. We ate and hung out clothes as nor­mal," she said, adding he was a per­son who was "lov­able to every­body."His aunt, Lynette Bark­er, said Mar­tin was not the vic­tim of an at­tempt­ed rob­bery be­cause all the mon­ey was left in the pock­et of the dri­ver's door.

A mo­tive for his mur­der has not been de­ter­mined.De­tec­tives from the Re­gion One Homi­cide Bu­reau are prob­ing both mur­ders.

– With re­port­ing by Camille Clarke