Jensen La Vende

Slaugh­ter of the in­no­cents.That was how Laven­tille res­i­dents yes­ter­day de­scribed the dou­ble mur­der of two school­boys, who were dragged from a taxi and shot dead while on their way home at Up­per Pic­ton Road.

The vic­tims have been iden­ti­fied as Suc­cess Laven­tille Sec­ondary School stu­dents Denel­son Smith, 17, and Mark Richards, 16, by res­i­dents of Up­per Pic­ton Road, Laven­tille.

Mark Thomas, a mem­ber of Project Rea­son, who lives in the com­mu­ni­ty, told the T&T Guardian that the killing of the two was a slaugh­ter.

"If I could speak to the gang­sters and them I will tell them that in all wars there are rules of en­gage­ment, please ex­cuse the non-com­bat­ants. If you know there are peo­ple who not in this war, I can't even call this a war that what hap­pened was slaugh­ter. They pick­ing out the best fruits," Thomas said.

He said Smith was an as­pir­ing pi­lot, and had been at­tend­ing avi­a­tion class­es every Ju­ly-Au­gust va­ca­tion. Thomas said crime was a dis­ease and it should be treat­ed as such, adding that one cure was for the peo­ple to unite against the wrong­do­ers and co-op­er­ate with the po­lice.

"Maybe we could stop a re­tal­i­a­tion, we as the peo­ple have the pow­er but we keep­ing silent. We have to come to­geth­er and take away the pow­er from them (killers)," he added.

Po­lice said the teens, both Form Four stu­dents, were on their way home with two oth­er class­mates when gun­men stopped the car they were in, or­dered all the chil­dren out and shot the two teens.

Smith col­lapsed and died near Fa­ti­ma Trace while Richards died a short dis­tance away. The teens lived not from where they died. Smith lived at Mul­rain Trace, Pic­ton, and Richards at So­gren Trace. The killing po­lice said hap­pened around 3.15 pm.

At the mur­der scene yes­ter­day Smith's broth­er, Devin, called for a cease­fire among war­ring gangs.

He said his broth­er was al­ways in­doors and on­ly ven­tured out­side when it was time for school or when he was go­ing out to lime with friends out of the area. He said his broth­er was a good per­son who got along well with all.

"I hear peo­ple laugh­ing up the road, say­ing they get two and they laugh­ing," Devin said.

Smith's moth­er screamed that her son's death will be­come just an­oth­er sta­tis­tic and that no jus­tice wil come out of her son's killing. Over­come with grief she could not be in­ter­viewed when ap­proached at the scene.

Both po­lice and res­i­dents were wrestling with a plau­si­ble mo­tive for the shoot­ing as nei­ther teens were said to be in­volved in any­thing il­le­gal.

A woman, who lives not too far from where the boys were killed, said she has lived in the area for most of her 60-plus years and de­scribed the tragedy as "heart-rend­ing." The woman said the pres­ence of po­lice of­fi­cers in the area could not be a de­ter­rent un­til the minds of mankind change.

Her neigh­bour said he was just en­ter­ing his home when he heard the gun­shots and lat­er saw Smith's body a short dis­tance from his car which was parked along Pic­ton Road.

"I ac­cus­tomed to this but this is the first time that it was so close. I liv­ing here all my life, 54 years, and we tired of this shoot­ing," he said, sug­gest­ing a po­lice post in the area may be a de­ter­rent.

Cops con­cerned over mur­der rate

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day head of the Homi­cide Bu­reau, Snr Supt Os­wald Cud­joe, said the po­lice would work to solve the mur­ders as soon as pos­si­ble, giv­en that from all ini­tial in­for­ma­tion the teens were not in­volved in any­thing il­le­gal.

In an in­ter­view be­fore the mur­ders yes­ter­day, Cud­joe said the hi­er­ar­chy of the Po­lice Ser­vice was con­cerned with the mur­der rate and have been try­ing to com­bat it but was be­ing starved of vi­tal in­for­ma­tion that the pub­lic could of­fer.

He said while the po­lice were do­ing what they could, with­out the pub­lic's as­sis­tance it was a ma­jor stum­bling block.

Cud­joe added that of the 33 mur­ders for the year two have been solved with a teenag­er and a 53-year-old man be­fore the court charged with mur­der.

He added: "Be­tween De­cem­ber and Jan­u­ary that is nor­mal­ly a high pe­ri­od and we are con­scious of that and have put things in place like in­creased pa­trols to help stem the tides.

"But there are spo­radic mur­ders and mur­ders hap­pen­ing out of the hot spots. I be­lieve we have ca­pac­i­ty and abil­i­ty to ar­rest the thing. Peo­ple want the mur­ders solved but they don't want to come for­ward.

"We can­not do it alone, we need the as­sis­tance. The solve rate will in­crease. We will bring it down to an ac­cept­able lev­el but as I read, man heart is evil.

"No one knows when a man is go­ing to kill some­one. What we will tack­le are gang vi­o­lence and or­gan­ised crimes. We have to fo­cus on that," Cud­joe added. ?

There will be a probe–Gar­cia

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia re­act­ed with hor­ror and anger yes­ter­day af­ter be­ing in­formed about the dou­ble mur­der of two stu­dents.

A state­ment from the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry last night said Gar­cia, who is at­tend­ing a Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies meet­ing in Ja­maica, stat­ed that of­fi­cials of the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices would vis­it the Suc­cess Laven­tille Sec­ondary School to­day to pro­vide grief coun­selling to both class­mates and staff.

"I am dis­turbed by the fact that our stu­dents are not safe while us­ing pub­lic trans­port and what is even more dis­turb­ing is that they were killed while in school uni­form. I will be call­ing for a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to this mat­ter as in­ci­dents such as this should not be al­lowed to oc­cur," the re­lease quot­ed the min­is­ter as say­ing.

Po­lice have iden­ti­fied the stu­dents as Mark Richards, of So­gren Trace, Pic­ton Road, and Denel­son Smith, of Mul­rain Trace, Laven­tille. The re­lease said both the po­lice and MTS se­cu­ri­ty at the school have con­firmed that Richards was a stu­dent of the school but did not at­tend class­es yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice they were pas­sen­gers in a taxi when gun­men pulled up and opened fire on them. They were killed in­stant­ly. Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh is cur­rent­ly act­ing as the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion.