lle­gal guns are be­ing blamed for one of the blood­i­est months in this coun­try's his­to­ry af­ter the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) record­ed 53 mur­ders in Jan­u­ary. These guns, pat­terns across the coun­try show, were used in the ma­jor­i­ty of homi­cides.

The dis­tricts that have re­port­ed the high­est mur­der rate in the first month of the New Year in­clude Ari­ma, San­gre Grande, Cunu­pia, south Trinidad and along the East-West cor­ri­dor from Arou­ca to Port-of-Spain.

The Sun­day Guardian com­piled and analysed the mur­ders com­mit­ted last month.

There were nine killings in Ari­ma, eight of which were gun-re­lat­ed. San­gre Grande and Cunu­pia each record­ed three peo­ple be­ing gunned down. South Trinidad record­ed 11 gun-re­lat­ed mur­ders, and from Arou­ca to Port-of-Spain, along the East-West cor­ri­dor, 11 peo­ple were killed, ten by firearms.

Sta­tis­tics showed that Tu­na­puna, Arou­ca, Mal­abar, Barataria, St James, El So­cor­ro, San Juan, Waller­field, Mal­ick, Paramin and Bras­so Seco all re­port­ed a gun-re­lat­ed mur­der last month.

Cas­cade record­ed one mur­der, Mar­aval record­ed one, Paramin record­ed one and St Ann's record­ed three. Ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics, of the six mur­ders in those ar­eas, three of the vic­tims died from gun­shot wounds, while one man was stabbed.

Head­ing fur­ther east in Waller­field one per­son was shot and killed, while Cou­va, Ch­agua­nas, Waller­field, Bras­so Seco and Mal­abar each record­ed one mur­der.

Two peo­ple lost their lives in To­ba­go. One of the vic­tims had his throat slit while the body of a male was dis­cov­ered.

In Jan­u­ary, TTPS record­ed 53 killings com­pared to 60 in 2018, which was the high­est ever re­port­ed in the last six years. The Jan­u­ary 2022 fig­ure rep­re­sent­ed 28 more mur­ders when com­pared to Jan­u­ary 2021.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira is pre­dict­ing the mo­men­tum of killings and crimes from the third quar­ter of last year will roll in­to the first quar­ter of 2022, and rel­a­tive­ly calm com­mu­ni­ties such as San­gre Grande, Ari­ma, Ch­agua­nas and South would see a spike in gang vi­o­lence due to a shift in the drug trade.

While the killing spree and blood­shed dom­i­nat­ed at least four lo­cal­i­ties cre­at­ing fear, wor­ry and fur­ther pan­ic among the pop­u­la­tion, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc Don­ald Ja­cob at a TTPS week­ly press brief­ing in mid-Jan­u­ary as­sured the na­tion that mur­ders were not out of con­trol, while As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Wen­dell Williams urged cit­i­zens not to be alarmed by the surge in killings as it hap­pens from time to time.

But as Jan­u­ary end­ed the may­hem and mur­ders con­tin­ued as gun­men held their reign of ter­ror in­to the start of Feb­ru­ary.

A break­down of the sta­tis­tics showed that 45 vic­tims were gunned down, the oth­ers were ei­ther stabbed, beat­en or dumped in an iso­lat­ed area.

The vic­tims, most of whom are males, ranged in ages ten to 72. On­ly three were fe­males.

Two ar­eas that con­tin­ue to earn the rep­u­ta­tion as killings fields are Ari­ma and south Trinidad.

In these two dis­tricts, the po­lice had to re­spond to 20 killings in un­der 30 days.

The body of Kei­thisha Cud­joe was dis­cov­ered last Fri­day in the Height of Aripo af­ter she went miss­ing on Jan­u­ary 24, which brought the mur­der count to nine in this east­ern dis­trict.

Areas with the highest murder count in January 2022

Michael Jawahir

One of the deaths in Ari­ma in­clud­ed ten-year-old Chris­t­ian Liv­er­pool of Bernard Street. The po­lice found and seized a Smith and Wes­son pis­tol at the crime scene. A male rel­a­tive was lat­er de­tained and then re­leased as the DPP or­dered an in­quest in­to the boy's death.

Ar­eas in the South such as San Fer­nan­do, Gas­par­il­lo, Ma­yaro, Tabaquite, Mara­bel­la, Erin and Fyz­abad al­so dom­i­nat­ed the head­lines with 11 peo­ple be­ing shot and killed.

In San Fer­nan­do alone, there were two dou­ble mur­ders just one week apart.

Two of the men–Akeem Men­doza and Jash­er Daniel–were gunned down close to their Or­chid Gar­dens, Pleas­antville homes. The oth­er two, Ma­lik Strak­er and Joel Cham­bers were sprayed with bul­lets while seat­ed in a ve­hi­cle in the South Park Mall car park.

The coun­try record­ed its first triple mur­der on Jan­u­ary 13 when armed men opened fire on Jher­mac Quashie, Ter­rance Nixon and Skeete Sanchez while they sat in­side a car parked on the To­co Main Road in San­gre Grande. The killings rocked the peace­ful com­mu­ni­ty.

Pen­sion­er Elza Sandy, 67, was robbed and beat­en to death at her Tacarigua home hours af­ter the coun­try rang in the New Year.

Hours in­to the New Year, as well, the na­tion was al­so thrown in­to a state of shock with the news of Shar­lene Lawrence, 27 and her fa­ther-in-law Roy Ma­habir, 72, be­ing gunned down in­side their Cunu­pia home by men pre­tend­ing to be po­lice of­fi­cers.

Sur­pris­ing­ly, the vi­o­lence and mur­ders that are fre­quent­ly re­port­ed in and around Port-of-Spain among ri­val gangs saw a de­crease in killings.

Undertakers remove the body of an unidenftified murder victim at Church Street, Arima, on January 15.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

In the cap­i­tal city, on­ly two men suc­cumbed to gun­shot wounds–Ker­win Naswell lost his life af­ter a gun­man with a high-pow­ered ri­fle opened fire on him in Laven­tille.

Out­side of the fa­tal shoot­ings, there were re­ports of two men dy­ing of stab wounds in Ch­agua­nas and Laven­tille, while some­one stum­bled up­on Yan­ic Shaquille's body which was wrapped in a garbage bag in a riv­er in St Ann's.

The pat­tern showed that most vic­tims were shot in­side a parked ve­hi­cle or rid­dled with bul­lets in­side their home, lim­ing with friends or walk­ing along a street.

Feb­ru­ary al­so got off to a mur­der­ous start with Mar­vin Cross and Wor­lene Joseph be­ing pumped with bul­lets at a home in Fyz­abad.

In the hours that fol­lowed, two peo­ple were shot and killed in San Fer­nan­do–Sal­isha Mo­hammed and Bob­by So­han in a wheel­chair. A third per­son, Tong Chin was gunned down in­side his car in Ch­agua­nas in broad day­light.

'Gang vi­o­lence es­ca­lat­ing'

Ja­cob not­ed that sta­tis­ti­cal­ly, the month of Jan­u­ary tend­ed to be high­er in terms of killings in the coun­try.

He told re­porters last month that 60 per cent of the coun­try's mur­ders were linked to gang war­fare, with al­ter­ca­tions and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence ac­count­ing for an­oth­er 30 per cent.

Re­spond­ing to the brazen killings in the busy car park of a shop­ping mall in South, Ja­cob said on the sur­face the mur­ders ap­peared to be gang/drug-re­lat­ed.

He said there seems to be a wor­ry­ing trend of gang vi­o­lence es­ca­lat­ing fol­low­ing what he de­scribed as a sig­nif­i­cant merg­er last year be­tween the street gangs and sev­er­al white-col­lar en­ter­prise gangs.

Ja­cob said the fo­cus on get­ting il­le­gal guns off the streets will see le­gal ports be­ing watched. The op­er­a­tions of se­cu­ri­ty firms will come un­der scruti­ny as well as li­cenced gun deal­ers, le­gal firearm users, shoot­ing ranges and firearm train­ers.

Ad­mit­ting there are too many guns in T&T, Ja­cob point­ed out there are gaps in the le­gal sys­tem that need to be tight­ened up.

Hinds sat­is­fied with Ja­cob's crime plan

Last Sun­day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds told re­porters that he met with Ja­cob to find out how the TTPS plans to deal with "an ap­par­ent bur­geon­ing crime sit­u­a­tion."

Though the crime trend was noth­ing new, Hinds ad­mit­ted that we have been see­ing reg­u­lar killings in re­cent times.

Hinds said he asked Ja­cob for a crime plan which he shared with him and the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil. He was sat­is­fied with what he heard.

Asked whether the spike in homi­cides could be at­trib­uted to gang vi­o­lence, Hinds said not all were gang-re­lat­ed, stat­ing that he had in­for­ma­tion to sug­gest that do­mes­tic vi­o­lence ac­count­ed for a tremen­dous num­ber of mur­ders.

Oth­er mur­ders, Hinds said, arise out of pet­ty squab­bles.

"I'm acute­ly aware and sat­is­fied that the an­ti-gang law which is at the dis­pos­al of the po­lice is be­ing af­fect­ed," Hinds said.

He al­so stat­ed that in re­cent times we have had a pletho­ra of le­gal weapons com­ing in.

"That too, based on all we have heard and seen, is gen­er­at­ing an­oth­er kind of con­cern and pos­si­bly an­oth­er kind of prob­lem," Hind said.

De­osaran slams Govt's An­ti-Gang leg­is­la­tion

But two days lat­er, crim­i­nol­o­gist Ramesh De­osaran said with 50-plus mur­ders in one month T&T was head­ing "in­to a mafia coun­try."

De­osaran al­so slammed the Gov­ern­ment's An­ti-Gang leg­is­la­tion which is do­ing noth­ing to help the sit­u­a­tion.

He said Gov­ern­ment has to now step back and take a fresh look at these gang-re­lat­ed be­hav­iours and the sud­den in­creas­es in se­ri­ous crimes rather than just talk and show sta­tis­tics.

De­osaran sug­gest­ed that the TTPS do some de­mo­graph­ic analy­sis on those com­mit­ting crimes, stat­ing that their back­ground need­ed to be checked "be­cause there are a lot of for­eign­ers in the coun­try, not on­ly Venezuela. Peo­ple are form­ing gangs with their own here and re­gen­er­at­ing with lo­cals here."

Re­search in 2019 by the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency re­vealed over 8,154 il­le­gals guns have been cir­cu­lat­ing in T&T.

Po­lice seized 680 il­le­gal guns and over 12,000 rounds of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion last year.

A to­tal of 976 peo­ple were charged with pos­ses­sion of il­le­gal guns and re­lat­ed of­fences in 2021.

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Figueira: The have nots prey­ing on the civil­ian pop­u­la­tion

The Sun­day Guardian reached out to crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira and for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith for an ex­pla­na­tion on the spike in vi­o­lent crimes.

Figueira said the na­ture of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty had changed. He re­vealed that while the heart or orig­i­nal core of gang­land from Mor­vant head­ing West was rel­a­tive­ly qui­et com­pared to the rest of the coun­try, oth­er ar­eas were ex­pe­ri­enc­ing an in­crease in gang vi­o­lence such as San­gre Grande, Ari­ma, Ch­agua­nas, and South.

He added that the drug trade had changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly as the peo­ple who were ex­clud­ed from the trade, the have nots, were now look­ing for 'a liv­ing' and were war­ring with the haves who were linked with transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime that dom­i­nat­ed sup­ply.

The crim­i­nol­o­gist said the ma­jor im­pact was that the have nots now turned and preyed on the civil­ian pop­u­la­tion, hence the rise in vi­o­lent crimes such as home in­va­sions, and peo­ple robbed of large sums of cash go­ing to or leav­ing banks.

An­oth­er con­cern­ing phe­nom­e­non he said was that many of the vi­o­lent crimes such as rob­beries, car-jack­ings and home in­va­sions were no longer done by a lone gun­man but by a group of armed as­sailants who had no qualms about us­ing vi­o­lence.

Figueira said he start­ed see­ing this dis­turb­ing change in the third quar­ter of 2021. How­ev­er, from the pe­ri­od De­cem­ber in­to Jan­u­ary, the change was dra­mat­ic.

The news was filled with peo­ple who were mur­dered for the large sums of mon­ey they trans­port­ed in their ve­hi­cles to con­duct high-risk trans­ac­tions, such as pur­chas­ing land or meet­ing a ven­dor af­ter view­ing an on­line item for sale.

At the height of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Figueira said, crim­i­nal en­ter­prise ex­plod­ed all over the North At­lantic.

Figueira ex­plained that while COVID-19 rav­aged Eu­rope, the var­i­ous coun­tries' po­lice of­fi­cers were stretched to their lim­it and the vol­ume of co­caine mov­ing through from the Caribbean in­to Eu­rope al­so grew mas­sive­ly.

What this meant for T&T, he said, was that since the coun­try was an im­por­tant tran­ship­ment hub for drugs to the world, the TTPS was al­so af­fect­ed by fi­nan­cial con­straints and man­pow­er re­sources ex­ac­er­bat­ed by COVID-19, which made it eas­i­er for firearms to be smug­gled in­to the coun­try to pro­tect the prod­uct and elim­i­nate the com­pe­ti­tion.

He said the pre­ferred weapon of gang mem­bers was the AR-15 ri­fle for their wars be­tween the haves and have not fac­tions, send­ing an ex­plic­it, vi­o­lent mes­sage via the weapon.

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Grif­fith: T&T pay­ing price for dis­man­tling poli­cies, sys­tems put in place

Grif­fith ar­gued that sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly dis­man­tling the TTPS' na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus has left the coun­try's cit­i­zens vul­ner­a­ble to crim­i­nal at­tacks re­sult­ing in an up­surge in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, in­clud­ing mur­ders.

Grif­fith said "We put over 100 poli­cies every year in place that did a lot for pub­lic con­fi­dence which moved from 14 per cent to 44 per cent. There was a rea­son for that; every crime was re­duced by over 35 per cent up to when I was there and that's not by ac­ci­dent. We put many de­ter­rents and sys­tems to make it dif­fi­cult for crime to flour­ish."

Now that many of these crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tives have been ter­mi­nat­ed, Grif­fith said, crim­i­nals will be­come em­bold­ened and brazen enough to kill some­one in broad day­light be­cause they be­lieve that the Rapid Re­sponse Unit, ERP (Emer­gency Re­sponse Pa­trol) or Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team won't re­spond im­me­di­ate­ly.

He said gangs had a de­gree of re­spect if not fear for law en­force­ment.

Grif­fith stat­ed that his stay­ing or demit­ting of­fice should nev­er have been an is­sue.

He opined if a crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy was work­ing, ef­forts should be made to re­tain or im­prove on it. By shut­ting down and dis­man­tling many of these poli­cies, plans and op­er­a­tions the coun­try cit­i­zens were pay­ing the price for it.

Grif­fith re­vealed that dur­ing his three-year tenure as CoP, the mur­der count for 2020 was 393, with 143 few­er homi­cides than the pre­vi­ous year, 2019, with 536 mur­ders.

He ex­plained that the high­est re­duc­tion in mur­ders in the coun­try's his­to­ry oc­curred in the first six months of 2021 when he was in of­fice, with 50 few­er mur­ders than 2020, but 2021 end­ed with 448 mur­ders.

Grif­fith con­tend­ed that if the same crime-fight­ing pro­grammes, poli­cies, and sys­tems he im­ple­ment­ed were kept, the mur­der rate would drop down to less than 300 mur­ders to fig­ures 18 years ago.

He rub­bished sev­er­al crim­i­nol­o­gists' as­ser­tions that the con­sid­er­able re­duc­tion in crime was more at­trib­ut­able to COVID-19 health and safe­ty mea­sures than to strate­gic polic­ing.

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Mur­der rate in Jan­u­ary:

2022-53

2021-25

2020-46

2019-40

2018-60

2017-52