Last month, three taxi dri­vers were killed on the job. This week, Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk takes a look at the chal­lenges fac­ing taxi dri­vers as they be­come in­creas­ing tar­gets for rob­beries that end in mur­der.

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

When North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) at­ten­dant Dense­ly Eu­dovic lost his left arm in a vi­o­lent rob­bery in 2012, he turned to dri­ving a taxi to earn a liveli­hood.

That ser­vice Eu­dovic pro­vid­ed to the pub­lic for the past five years cost him his life three weeks ago.

On Ju­ly 12, the am­putee dri­ver seized the op­por­tu­ni­ty to earn mon­ey by ac­cept­ing a pri­vate job in San­gre Grande. Two days lat­er, his de­com­pos­ing body was found in a forest­ed area at the ten-mile mark, Cu­napo South­ern Main Road, Biche. Eu­dovic was found in his un­der­wear and his feet were tied.

His killer(s) spared him no mer­cy as he had a deep chop wound on his head.

Eu­dovic is one of 48 male dri­vers killed be­tween 2015 and Ju­ly of this year, in what is be­ing re­ferred to as “a dan­ger­ous job.”

These dri­vers worked var­i­ous routes as hired taxis, PH (pri­vate hire), and maxi taxi dri­vers.

Of the 48, Che Mendez, who was gunned down in St Ann’s ear­li­er this month, was clas­si­fied as a Massy Dis­tri­b­u­tion de­liv­ery dri­ver.

Many of these dri­vers met a vi­o­lent death in the line of du­ty, as they were beat­en, chopped, stabbed, slaugh­tered, and shot mul­ti­ple times by crim­i­nals pre­tend­ing to be pas­sen­gers.

Oth­ers were am­bushed and gunned down while in their homes or pub­lic spaces.

The Sun­day Guardian tab­u­lat­ed the 48 mur­ders based on me­dia re­ports over the last ten years.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, sev­en dri­vers were mur­dered this year so far; three of the killings hap­pened in Ju­ly. The oth­er four dri­vers were mur­dered be­tween Jan­u­ary and June.

Last year, nine dri­vers were killed. Mean­while, taxi dri­vers Anil Maraj and Vi­vian Sama­roo went miss­ing are still un­ac­count­ed for and their fam­i­lies are cling­ing to hope.

Eight dri­vers were mur­dered in 2022. In 2021, four lost their lives, while in 2020, two were killed.

An analy­sis showed in the last 31 months (2022 to present) 24 of the 48 dri­vers were killed, com­pared to the 24 mur­dered from 2015 to 2021 (over a sev­en-and-a-half-year pe­ri­od).

In light of the in­creased killings, the moth­er of one of the mur­dered dri­vers feels crim­i­nals who are found guilty of se­ri­ous crimes in­clud­ing mur­der should be giv­en strokes with the cat o’ nine tails (cat). The cat o’ nine tails is a wood­en han­dle whip con­sist­ing of nine, three-foot-long, quar­ter-inch straps with sharp metal­lic ends.

Eu­dovic’s sad tale

On Tues­day, Eu­dovic’s wife, Mar­sha Baksh-Eu­dovic, broke down in tears as she re­lat­ed how her hus­band of four years was tak­en from her.

Hav­ing buried her hus­band last Mon­day, Mar­sha de­scribed the killing as heart­break­ing, stat­ing that the mur­der rate was ridicu­lous. You keep hear­ing a lot about crime, but you’re not hear­ing about the de­tec­tion and con­vic­tion rates or swift jus­tice for the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies.”

The cou­ple was to­geth­er for 14 years. Their 11-year-old son is now fa­ther­less.

Mar­sha said Eu­dovic loved their son, who will be en­ter­ing Stan­dard Five in Sep­tem­ber.

“Dense­ly paid for his lessons and took him to school every day. He in­vest­ed a lot of time and mon­ey in our son’s ed­u­ca­tion. Dense­ly was look­ing for­ward to him sit­ting the SEA ex­am next year and pass­ing for his first choice, Trin­i­ty Col­lege.”

On that fate­ful morn­ing, Eu­dovic left his Va­len­cia home, say­ing he had a pri­vate job in Coal Mine.

In Mar­sha’s last tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion with her hus­band, he asked for a meal.

When Mar­sha, 37, did not see her hus­band re­turn home lat­er that evening, she be­came wor­ried. Calls to his cell­phone al­so went unan­swered.

“I couldn’t sleep that night. I had a bad feel­ing in my stom­ach.”

The fol­low­ing morn­ing, a re­port was made to the po­lice, and the Hunters Search and Res­cue team was no­ti­fied.

Lat­er that day, Eu­dovic’s HED 7714 ve­hi­cle was found aban­doned on Olton Road, Ari­ma.

“I held on to hope. I kept telling my­self some­body prob­a­bly stole his ve­hi­cle, and he was in the hos­pi­tal.”

The next day, Mar­sha re­ceived a call that a de­com­pos­ing body was found in a forest­ed area close to Biche. She was asked to view the body.

When Mar­sha ar­rived at the crime scene and looked in­side the body bag, she recog­nised the stump on her hus­band’s arm.

“My body just went numb.”

An au­top­sy stat­ed that Eu­dovic died of cra­nial in­juries.

In 2012, Mar­sha said Eu­dovic, 40, es­caped death dur­ing a vi­o­lent rob­bery in San­gre Grande. At that time, he worked as a re­lief at­ten­dant with the NCRHA.

“He was held up. The ban­dits tried to kill him.” In fight­ing off the cut­lass-wield­ing crim­i­nals, Eu­dovic’s left arm was al­most sev­ered. Doc­tors had to am­pu­tate part of his arm to save his life.

The near-death ex­pe­ri­ence al­so changed Eu­dovic’s oc­cu­pa­tion. He opt­ed to dri­ve a taxi.

“It was a tough jour­ney to get him to be­come a taxi dri­ver,” Mar­sha, a reg­is­tered nurse, re­called.

“No­body want­ed to sign off on his taxi badge be­cause he had one hand. He did not give up. He kept writ­ing the Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er and Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion to dri­ve on the road.” His per­sis­tence even­tu­al­ly paid off. In 2019, he ob­tained his li­cence and be­gan work­ing the Ari­ma/San­gre Grande route.

Eu­dovic was re­gard­ed as one of the most pleas­ant, ef­fi­cient and help­ful dri­vers.

“One thing about my hus­band, he was a provider. He nev­er al­lowed his am­pu­ta­tion to keep him back.”

He al­so pro­vid­ed pas­sen­gers with shop­ping ser­vices. “Pas­sen­gers used to send him their gro­cery lists, and Dense­ly would buy their items and de­liv­er them to their doorstep.”

Mar­sha is hop­ing for her hus­band’s killer(s) to be brought to jus­tice.

Rob­beries re­lat­ed to dri­vers’ deaths

Last Wednes­day, Mar­garet Charles, 62, the moth­er of mur­dered TT RideShare dri­ver Shakem Charles, al­so vent­ed her feel­ings about the coun­try’s killing spree.

Shakem, 32, went miss­ing on Ju­ly 9. Four days lat­er, his de­com­pos­ing body was found in a bushy area in Pe­nal.

His new­ly pur­chased Toy­ota Cross ve­hi­cle val­ued at $220,000 had been aban­doned in Va­len­cia.

Shakem had re­cent­ly reg­is­tered with TT RideShare as a dri­ver to earn ex­tra cash.

Po­lice be­lieve the fa­ther of two, of In­di­an Walk, who worked as an IT tech­ni­cian dur­ing the day, was the vic­tim of a rob­bery that end­ed in mur­der while do­ing his side job.

An au­top­sy showed Shakem died from mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds, which sparked out­rage on so­cial me­dia.

Charles said her son had an old car that of­ten broke down on the road. This pushed him to buy the Toy­ota Cross.

“I was so hap­py for him when he got the ve­hi­cle.” His in­stal­ment for the ve­hi­cle was close to $3,000 month­ly.

“He was try­ing to make ends meet and pay off for the new ve­hi­cle. I nev­er thought his life would have end­ed in such a grue­some man­ner.”

Charles said the re­cent spike in the mur­der of taxi dri­vers seems to be a new trend among ban­dits.

“They are look­ing at any means nec­es­sary to just dis­tress peo­ple. For them, it’s an easy way to make mon­ey.”

She said her son worked hard to pro­vide for his chil­dren.

“They (crim­i­nals) don’t know the kinds of sac­ri­fices peo­ple are mak­ing. You know the sad thing about it, it’s not just our na­tion­als do­ing that (crime).”

Some Span­ish-speak­ing in­di­vid­u­als who live among us, she said, have al­so been “con­tribut­ing heav­i­ly to our crime sit­u­a­tion.”

A griev­ing Charles is con­vinced that some­thing is wrong in our coun­try.

“It looks like the dev­il roam­ing this land.”

Charles said while cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment was abol­ished in schools, par­ents of delin­quent chil­dren need to en­force flog­ging in homes to keep them in line.

“Dis­ci­pline has to start in the home. If you re­al­ly check some of the back­grounds of these fel­las (crim­i­nals) that are do­ing this thing (crime), check the homes they come from.” Many grew up in sin­gle-par­ent homes.

“These par­ents have no con­trol over their chil­dren.”

She said the coun­try was head­ing to a point of no re­turn and ap­pealed to the Gov­ern­ment to re­sume hang­ings, which would serve as a de­ter­rent to crim­i­nals cre­at­ing blood­shed and may­hem.

If the re­sump­tion of hang­ings is im­pos­si­ble, the Gov­ern­ment could look at an­oth­er op­tion.

“When you see they catch these fel­las do­ing these rob­beries, it shouldn’t have noth­ing like a tri­al. Deal with them one time.”

Charles said once the po­lice have ev­i­dence on cam­era and the per­pe­tra­tor’s fin­ger­prints and weapons in their pos­ses­sion, they should be im­me­di­ate­ly hauled be­fore the courts for sen­tenc­ing, which should in­clude strokes with the cat o’ nine tails.

She said too many pris­on­ers are await­ing tri­al for se­ri­ous crimes, in­clud­ing mur­der, at the ex­pense of tax­pay­ers.

“They are hap­py in­side there (jail). They have ac­cess to cell­phones. They are liv­ing life as nor­mal, eat­ing and drink­ing at the ex­pense of tax­pay­ers.”

She said the flog­ging might make them think twice.

Charles said there was too much “pulling and tug­ging” be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion over crime while law-abid­ing cit­i­zens re­main un­der siege by crim­i­nals cre­at­ing hav­oc.

“At the end of the day, the politi­cians and them play­ing pol­i­tics with peo­ple’s lives for their own per­son­al gain. They doh care about no­body. They on­ly care about them­selves.”

Josh not giv­ing up search for miss­ing dad

For the last 16 months, Josh Maraj has been look­ing for his 40-year-old fa­ther, Anil Maraj.

The Erin taxi dri­ver, a fa­ther of five, went miss­ing on March 17 last year af­ter be­ing hired for a pri­vate job.

The Ti­i­da taxi Maraj was dri­ving was found sev­en months lat­er in Ari­ma.

“The po­lice caught a man dri­ving the car. That per­son claimed they pur­chased the ve­hi­cle from some­one.”

The dri­ver, Josh said, had no in­sur­ance for the ve­hi­cle, and the num­ber plate had been changed.

The taxi is reg­is­tered in Josh’s name.

“You can’t buy a ve­hi­cle with­out a cer­ti­fied copy. As the own­er, I had to trans­fer the ve­hi­cle to him or give a re­ceipt. I nev­er sold the car to any­one.”

Josh won­dered who sold the man the taxi, stat­ing that this per­son may hold the key to solv­ing this lin­ger­ing case.

He said the po­lice have been drag­ging their feet with their in­ves­ti­ga­tion, even though they had new in­for­ma­tion to work with.

The po­lice have since hand­ed over the car to Josh.

“We are not giv­ing up,” Josh said.

T&T Taxi Dri­vers Net­work: We are sit­ting ducks

T&T Taxi Dri­vers Net­work pres­i­dent Adri­an Da Cos­ta ad­mit­ted taxi dri­vers are be­ing tar­get­ed by crim­i­nals and called on the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to is­sue firearms to its vul­ner­a­ble mem­bers.

“We even wrote to the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er ask­ing for the re­quire­ments to get your FUL. We were look­ing at that to help pro­tect our­selves be­cause we have not been get­ting the po­lice pres­ence around our taxi stands af­ter 6 pm.”

There are ap­prox­i­mate­ly 70 taxi stands in Trinidad, com­pris­ing 15,000 dri­vers. This fig­ure ex­cludes maxi taxis and PH dri­vers.

“It is very easy to get an il­le­gal weapon. As far as I am con­cerned, that is what they (TTPS) are push­ing peo­ple to do be­cause peo­ple need to pro­tect them­selves. The ban­dits and them get­ting weapons very, very eas­i­ly. The per­sons who want to legal­ly pro­tect them­selves are go­ing through hell.”

Da Cos­ta works the Ch­agua­nas/San Fer­nan­do route.

He said not every­one would be grant­ed a FUL, as the TTPS’s ap­pli­ca­tion process has be­come strin­gent.

To ob­tain pep­per spray, a per­mit is al­so need­ed.

“Even if they (TTPS) are not ready to give you a FUL, what do you have out­side there to pro­tect your­self in the mean­time? There is ab­solute­ly noth­ing. So we are sit­ting ducks. When some­one points a gun to your head, there is noth­ing you can do.”

Da Cos­ta al­so re­vealed some dri­vers are “us­ing the PH trade to rob peo­ple.”

List of mur­dered PH, taxi and maxi taxi dri­vers:

2024

Ju­ly- Dense­ly Eu­dovic

Shakem Charles

Che Mendez

June- Christi­no Per­reira

April- Vic­tor Williams

Feb­ru­ary- Gabriel Reid

Jan­u­ary- Sher­win Find­ley

2023

Sep­tem­ber- Deron Big­gart

Rawle Williams

Au­gust- Je­re­mi­ah Alexan­der

David “Daoud” Philbert

May- Stephen Mar­shall

Vi­vian Sama­roo (miss­ing)

April- Rishi Et­wa­roo

March- Anil Maraj (miss­ing)

An­tho­ny An­drews

Jan­u­ary- Ja­son An­tho­ny Cud­joe

De­vanand Su­per­sad

2022

Feb­ru­ary- Shah­miel Ju­nior Red­head

June- Steven­son San­di­ford

Ju­ly- Kelvin “Min­cie” An­drew

Au­gust- Ras­san Richard­son

Damien Dan­clair

Shamel Corn­wall

No­vem­ber- Mi­tra Bho­la

De­cem­ber- Robert Cud­joe

2021

Jan­u­ary- Mo­hid Ho­sein

Navi Ho­sein

June- Richard Joseph

Justin Mar­tin

2020

Jan­u­ary- Bri­an Hack­ett

Oc­to­ber- Kelvin Shaffie

2019

Jan­u­ary- Ken­neth Nag­im

April- Ken­neth Paris

May- Desmond Brath­waite

June- Ru Seecha­ran

Sep­tem­ber- Clyde Richard Den­nis

Oc­to­ber- Dean O’Neil

2018

Jan­u­ary- Andy Bai­ley

Au­gust- At­i­ba Alexan­der

May - Christo­pher Mo­hammed

2017

Sep­tem­ber- Keshore Ra­madin

Jemel Nichol­son

De­cem­ber- Bran­don Dupigny

Pooran Roodal

2016

Ju­ly- Kurt Levero

April- Nicholas John

2015

May- Pe­ter­son Thomas

June- Solomon Faustin

De­cem­ber- Re­shan Bar­ran