PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

The blood­let­ting of 2022 con­tin­ued in­to 2023 as two peo­ple were gunned down while an­oth­er was in­jured in a shoot­ing in Mal­oney Gar­dens on New Year's Day.

Christo­pher "One Foot' Williams, 27, and a man who was iden­ti­fied on­ly as Ezekiel were among a group of men gath­ered in the car park of Build­ing Six, at around 9 pm when a car pulled up. Gun­men ex­it­ed the ve­hi­cle and opened fire, killing Williams and "Ezekiel" while an­oth­er man was shot in the arm.

Williams and Ezekiel, who both lived with­in walk­ing dis­tance of the in­ci­dent, died at the scene of the shoot­ing. The third man was tak­en to the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment.

Po­lice be­lieve the in­ci­dent was re­lat­ed to on­go­ing an­i­mos­i­ty among gangs in the area. The po­lice said that 29 spent 9 mm shells were re­trieved at the scene of the dou­ble homi­cide.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed yes­ter­day, res­i­dents were re­luc­tant to dis­cuss the in­ci­dent or dis­close where Williams lived. When his rel­a­tives were fi­nal­ly found, they opt­ed not to speak to the me­dia.

Res­i­dents sim­i­lar­ly had lit­tle to say about Ezekiel, but one woman from the area said she was not aware that he was con­nect­ed to any gang and sus­pect­ed he may have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She ex­plained that she had known him as a qui­et per­son, who gen­er­al­ly kept to him­self.

The Mal­oney in­ci­dent meant that five peo­ple were killed on New Year's Day, con­tin­u­ing the bloody trend set in 2022 which saw a record-break­ing 606 mur­ders record­ed for the year.

The oth­er New Year's Day homi­cides were Avin Ma­habir, whose body was found off Bridge Road, Ca­roni; Nasir Saqui, who was found with a wound to the head at his home in Pe­nal; and Ron­nie Lam­bkin, who was shot dead in a mo­tor car in Kel­ly Vil­lage.

Com­par­a­tive­ly, on­ly one mur­der had been record­ed on the first day of 2022.

Ear­li­er in the day, a 42-year-old was al­so shot in Mal­oney, while in the com­pa­ny of her friends at Build­ing 15.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, a group of men stormed the build­ing and opened fire on the group at around noon on Sun­day. The woman was hit in the shoul­der. Her as­sailants fled the scene on foot.

She was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex for treat­ment and was said to be in a sta­ble con­di­tion up to yes­ter­day evening.

Po­lice con­firmed that sev­en spent rounds were re­cov­ered from the scene which bore the 'TTR' (Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment) mark­ings.

Late in De­cem­ber, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment ex­plained it was co­op­er­at­ing with the po­lice fol­low­ing nu­mer­ous re­ports that am­mu­ni­tion rounds bear­ing the mark­ings 'TTR' had been found at sev­er­al crime scenes in the past month.

The Reg­i­ment said it was in­ves­ti­gat­ing these dis­cov­er­ies along with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to de­ter­mine the au­then­tic­i­ty of the rounds found at the scene.

Rounds that are marked with the words 'TTR' are au­tho­rised for Reg­i­ment use on­ly.