The coun­try’s mur­der toll now stands at 294 af­ter four more were record­ed be­tween Thurs­day night and Fri­day night.

The vic­tims have been iden­ti­fied as An­to­nio Dick­son, of Sandy Trace, St Barbs, Shi­raz Ali, of Bound­ary Road, San Juan, PH dri­ver Ashar Kir­by, of Seav­iew in Care­nage and Nigel Bel­lot, of Carr Lane, Bel­mont.

Late last night one man was killed and three oth­ers in­jured in shoot­ing in the La Hor­quet­ta dis­trict. No oth­er de­tails were im­me­di­ate­ly avail­able.

Po­lice al­so re­port­ed a woman be­ing stabbed sev­er­al times out­side Ex­press House by a man she knew. The vic­tim was tak­en to hos­pi­tal.

Dick­son, a PH taxi dri­ver was shot and killed just be­fore six o’clock Fri­day evening.

Po­lice say gun­men opened fire on Dixon who was seat­ed in a ve­hi­cle. He was shot sev­er­al times in the face and up­per body.

Twelve hours ear­li­er, Shi­raz Ali was shot and killed in the vicin­i­ty of the Aranguez North Sec­ondary School.

Rel­a­tives told Guardian Me­dia that every week­day Ali had a morn­ing rou­tine. He would leave his Ed­in­burgh 500, Ch­agua­nas home with his wife Yas­mine Mo­hammed, drop her to work, then car­ry break­fast for his broth­er in El So­cor­ro, San Juan, be­fore go­ing to work at a chick­en de­pot in the Croisee.

Yes­ter­day, his rou­tine was dis­rupt­ed vi­o­lent­ly when he was gunned down mo­ments af­ter drop­ping his wife at the Fla­vorite fac­to­ry on Bound­ary Road Ex­ten­sion. Ali was dri­ving his sta­tion wag­on along the road­way short­ly af­ter 6 am when a car pulled up along­side him as he moved past the Aranguez North Sec­ondary School. A gun­man sit­ting in the pas­sen­ger seat of the ve­hi­cle opened fire on Ali, hit­ting him in the head, neck and chest. Ali, a fa­ther of three, died in the front seat of his car.

Ali’s wife was among the first to learn of her hus­band’s death and iden­ti­fied him to po­lice. She was ini­tial­ly re­spon­sive to in­ves­ti­ga­tors but af­ter giv­ing a state­ment to po­lice on the scene, took one look at her hus­band’s car and broke down.

Un­able to cope with the grief of see­ing her hus­band’s life­less body, Mo­hammed col­lapsed near an un­der­tak­er’s van and had to be car­ried in­to the near­by school, where her friends and an MTS se­cu­ri­ty guard tried to con­sole her.

An am­bu­lance was called and con­cerns were raised about her spi­ralling heart rate.

Mo­hammed, how­ev­er, re­fused to go with the para­medics when the am­bu­lance ar­rived, claim­ing her hus­band was out­side wip­ing down the car so he could take her to work.

Ali’s broth­er, Sad­diq Ali, told Guardian Me­dia, “This morn­ing I home, wait­ing for he self (sic), ‘cause every morn­ing he does bring break­fast for me. I eh see him com­ing, I eh see him com­ing. Then same time a CEPEP man come and call me, and say ‘look yuh broth­er now get kill by the road.’”

He added, “I run and see my broth­er, lie down in the car there.”

In tears, Ali lament­ed that it was the sec­ond mur­der to rock the fam­i­ly in less than a year. Last De­cem­ber, Ali’s broth­er-in-law was mur­dered fol­low­ing a land dis­pute in Ari­ma. How­ev­er, rel­a­tives do not be­lieve there is any link be­tween that mur­der and Ali’s mur­der yes­ter­day. How­ev­er, they said they had no clue why he was tar­get­ed.

“I wish that was me there, not he,” said his broth­er, “that man doesn’t in­ter­fere with no­body. He would give you the last dol­lar in his pock­et.”

Killing in restau­rant carpark

Hours be­fore Ali’s mur­der at about 10.30 pm on Thurs­day, PH dri­ver Ashar Kir­by was killed in the carpark of KFC in West­moor­ings.

Kir­by was seat­ed in a beige Nis­san Almera along with Ja­mal “Etum­bay” Samuel, wait­ing on Samuel’s girl­friend to pur­chase their meal.

The woman told po­lice she dropped off the meals in the car and re­turned in­side for the drinks when she heard sev­er­al gun­shots. She told po­lice she saw two gun­men from a dis­tance shoot­ing at the car. Kir­by died on the scene while Samuel was shot and wound­ed. Samuel was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he was treat­ed and ward­ed.

Pres­tige Hold­ings Ltd (PHL), the lo­cal own­er of the KFC fran­chise, ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the rel­a­tives of Kir­by and Samuel who was in­jured in the shoot­ing.

Si­mon Hardy, CEO of Pres­tige Hold­ings Ltd said PHL will co-op­er­ate ful­ly with the au­thor­i­ties in their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Just about half an hour be­fore Kir­by was killed, po­lice said at about 10 pm Nigel Bel­lot was at his home at Carr Lane, Bel­mont, with a woman when they heard a knock­ing on the front door. Po­lice said Bel­lot opened the door and was shot sev­er­al times. He died on the scene.

Po­lice said Bel­lot was de­port­ed sev­er­al years ago but was not known to be in­volved in any il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty by them.

Ear­li­er on Thurs­day at around 1.30 pm, Wen­dell John, 42, was gunned down just out­side the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal at the cor­ner of Char­lotte Street and Bel­mont Cir­cu­lar Road.

John was orig­i­nal­ly from La Plat­te Vil­lage, Mar­aval, but moved out of the area four months ago. He was known for be­ing com­i­cal and throw­ing pi­cong and in­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve that he may have been killed for “his mouth.”

In March 2018, John es­caped death when he was shot in the leg and ab­domen in a dri­ve-by shoot­ing. One per­son died in that in­ci­dent, po­lice said.

In Thurs­day’s in­ci­dent, John was be­lieved to be ei­ther go­ing to or leav­ing the hos­pi­tal’s clin­ic, where he was an out­pa­tient re­ceiv­ing treat­ment for the pre­vi­ous gun­shot wounds.

Hours af­ter his mur­der, sev­er­al videos of John in his moods went vi­ral on so­cial me­dia, in­clud­ing one in which he said he had con­tract­ed the AIDS virus for the past 20 years.

In the video, John was heard throw­ing hate slurs and ob­scen­i­ties to­wards the Ras­ta City Gang. The per­son who was record­ing the video asked John what he would do if he were ap­proached by a mem­ber of the Ras­ta City Gang, to which he replied “Dis­man­tle them.”

When asked about this par­tic­u­lar video, John’s fa­ther, An­tho­ny Adams, 55, laughed and said his son nev­er meant any of what he said. He said he was par­tic­i­pat­ing in the J’Ou­vert rev­el­ry ear­li­er this year and was drunk at the time.

“Na...he doesn’t have AIDS but that’s how he is al­ways re­spond­ing to peo­ple when they mak­ing joke with him. He is al­ways drink­ing and when he is drunk that is how he does be and every­body knows him to be like that,” Adams told Guardian Me­dia.

Adams said his son had mi­grat­ed with his moth­er and two sis­ters but re­turned to T&T at the age of 18.

“He came to learn a trade and go back but he nev­er learn noth­ing. In­stead he would lime every day. His moth­er spoil him from 18 to now, al­ways send­ing mon­ey and shoes and what­ev­er else he want­ed.”

He de­scribed his son as a per­son who al­ways en­joyed life.

“He was al­ways lim­ing and drink­ing and mak­ing peo­ple laugh. In one of the videos he was danc­ing. He loved life and was just en­joy­ing it. He was nev­er in any gang thing or any oth­er stu­pid­ness.”