Laven­tille West Fitzger­ald Hinds said yes­ter­day the killings tak­ing place in his con­stituen­cy was all about "rank, stu­pid­i­ty and bor­der­lines."

In re­sponse to ques­tions from the T&T Guardian on Thurs­day's killing of two stu­dents of Suc­cess Laven­tille Sec­ondary School, Hinds said he, like oth­er cit­i­zens, was sick­ened by the deaths.

Deneil­son Smith, 17, and Mark Richards, 16, were dragged from a taxi by gun­men and shot them as they were ap­proach­ing their re­spec­tive homes in Laven­tille.He said the killings were "over ab­solute­ly noth­ing. It is not about land, it is noth­ing. It is just based on stu­pid­i­ty and the ac­cess to il­le­gal firearms and the swift­ness to run for them."

He said it was for those rea­sons "we lost two of our sons and this has brought sad­ness to their fam­i­lies, the en­tire com­mu­ni­ty and shame and dis­grace to Laven­tille and Suc­cess/Laven­tille school and many are trau­ma­tised."

Hinds said he was ac­com­pa­nied by nine min­is­ters and par­lia­men­tary col­leagues to the homes of the de­ceased stu­dents on Fri­day night, adding that they of­fered as­sis­tance to the fam­i­lies.

Hinds said he ful­ly sup­port­ed the de­ci­sion by Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley, who is the chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, to re­in­state joint army/po­lice pa­trols in Laven­tille per­ma­nent­ly.

The min­is­ter not­ed that peo­ple were ar­rest­ed and were be­ing in­ter­ro­gat­ed by the po­lice in con­nec­tion with the dou­ble killing.

But Hinds said there was a wider prob­lem–the pro­lif­er­a­tion of guns on the na­tions streets–and added that the se­cu­ri­ty forces were "de­ter­mined to take these lethal bar­rel in­stru­ments out of the com­mu­ni­ty as it was ac­cess to guns that lead to the fa­tal­i­ties we are read­ing about."

He said hard polic­ing tech­niques and soft po­lice coun­selling are be­ing en­cour­aged "to in­flu­ence these ig­no­rant boys to stop cre­at­ing the may­hem." He said the hard polic­ing mea­sures were be­ing im­ple­ment­ed "for those who are not pre­pared to yield to the soft polic­ing tech­niques."

"We are fo­cussing on Laven­tille to en­cour­age a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life, greater hope and op­por­tu­ni­ties so they will dis­cov­er there is no need to be dis­hon­est and to be a gun­man in or­der to suc­ceed," he said.

Hinds aid for those who were not pre­pared to "ac­cept, un­der­stand that and play by civ­il so­ci­ety rules, the law will take its course."

Hinds said par­ents were sup­posed to en­sure their chil­dren were brought up with the val­ues and dis­ci­pline re­quired to be a good cit­i­zen.But he said some par­ents, in­stead, de­lib­er­ate­ly en­cour­age their chil­dren to en­gage in crime. "There are adults who give boys guns to com­mit crime and may­hem in the coun­try."