Mark Bas­sant

Lead Ed­i­tor, In­ves­tiga­tive Desk

The sound of au­to­mat­ic gun­fire from war­ring gangs pierced the Laven­tille hills two Mon­days ago dur­ing the mid-morn­ing pe­ri­od, caus­ing chil­dren of the Rose Hill RC Pri­ma­ry School, fear in their eyes, to cow­er in ter­ror.

Video of the in­ci­dent viewed thou­sands of times on so­cial me­dia drew wide­spread con­dem­na­tion and forced law en­force­ment to take de­ci­sive ac­tion through armed com­fort pa­trols to pro­tect the vul­ner­a­ble, who were at risk when­ev­er gun­men struck, bold­ly, pick­ing off their tar­gets with no thought for the in­no­cents in their path.

Gang war­fare and gang reprisal killings have not on­ly spi­ralled out of con­trol but in­no­cent peo­ple have been shot and wound­ed and even killed in some cas­es. The num­ber of mur­ders for 2022 now stands at 524 and count­ing as it edges to­wards the sec­ond-high­est mur­der count of 539 record­ed in 2019. The coun­try is hurtling to­wards meet­ing the record high­est mur­der count ever–550 in 2008.

Res­i­dents of Laven­tille and its en­vi­rons are fa­mil­iar with the gang ri­val­ry and what has pushed the Rose Hill com­mu­ni­ty and oth­ers to the brink.

They said fight­ing for turf or ter­ri­to­ry, guns and drugs and oth­er il­lic­it items to 'bad blood' over who gets gov­ern­ment con­tracts, plain jeal­ousy or even a fall­out over a fe­male could trig­ger the 'war'. Po­lice sources al­so con­firmed this.

A 33-year-old man fa­mil­iar with the Basilon Street gang and re­sid­ing in that area gave some in­sight in­to the Rose Hill shoot­ing.

"That Rose Hill shoot­ing a few weeks ago has a long his­to­ry be­tween two ri­val gangs, the Sixx gang in St Paul Street and the Sev­en gang in Basilon Street," he said.

"It start­ed be­fore COVID-19 when the 'Sixx boss' and the 'Sev­en boss' had a falling out over a girl."

Af­ter a heat­ed ex­change of words, he said, things got vi­o­lent and sub­se­quent­ly out of hand.

The man claimed that the 'Sixx boss' sent sev­er­al threats, at times us­ing his so­cial me­dia han­dle via In­sta­gram to do so.

"In 2021, his gang shot and killed a guy called "Chan­nas" in Man­go Rose and they (Sev­en gang) were not tak­ing that. The 'Sixx boss' feel he could bul­ly peo­ple and in­ject fear in them. Peo­ple do not want that and they do not want him around here, and the Sev­en gang have to de­fend their life.

"The Sixx gang want to lock the block here and they are not go­ing to al­low that. We want to be able to come and go as we like but these days we can­not do that. They shoot at us any chance they get. Their foot sol­diers are killing in­no­cent peo­ple," he claimed.

He said the shoot­ing death of Dirwin Gookool on Oc­to­ber 21, at the cor­ner of Alexan­der Place and Laven­tille Road, was one such case.

The es­ca­lat­ing war be­tween these two ri­val gangs has not on­ly cre­at­ed un­easi­ness in the East Dry Riv­er area but al­so in the heart of Port-of-Spain when a mes­sage was sent to the Sixx boss by his ri­vals who shot up a car at City Gate in­jur­ing one man while a fe­male rel­a­tive of the Sixx boss es­caped un­hurt.

As fear and ten­sion grip the com­mu­ni­ty, not even taxi dri­vers who work in the East Port-of-Spain area are im­mune to col­lat­er­al dam­age. "They telling taxi dri­vers who work in this area don't pick up any­one and drop them in this area be­cause they will kill them," an­oth­er man said, speak­ing on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty.

None of the res­i­dents from the area where the ri­val gangs are lo­cat­ed is safe from a bul­let.

"If they can­not get to who they want, some­body from the area will have to feel it and it is bet­ter them than us," said the man who is fa­mil­iar with the Basilon Street gang.

He ex­plained that the gangs use di­ver­sion­ary tac­tics to dis­tract their ri­vals at times so that they can come from an­oth­er di­rec­tion and shoot some­one.

"So all of a sud­den you will start to hear gun­fire up the hill loud, loud and while every­body is cen­tred on that, gun­men run­ning in from an­oth­er di­rec­tion be­hind you and start to shoot," said the Basilon street man.

"Chil­dren can­not even come out and play on the streets be­cause gun­men are al­ways look­ing to shoot some­body with who they war­ring.

"I will tell you peo­ple have to de­fend them­selves and guns are not cheap. It is $7,000 to $25,000 (re­volver and hand­guns) you might pay for a gun. The younger ones don't have the mon­ey, but I know the oth­er se­nior ones with con­nec­tions high up get­ting firearms," he said.

An­oth­er man from Trou Macaque, Laven­tille, al­so fa­mil­iar with the gang ac­tiv­i­ty, ad­mit­ted the youths who have very lit­tle to look for­ward to in the area and with no ac­cess to jobs have been grav­i­tat­ing to gangs and il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties.

"The guns and drugs in the area have cre­at­ed rifts and some of them end up in these small crews. There are times cer­tain con­tracts are giv­en in spe­cif­ic ar­eas and if some­one does not get a piece of the ac­tion it is quite like­ly some­one is go­ing to end up dead. If you try to take some­thing that is not yours you can al­so end up dead.

"This has been go­ing on a long time now...I re­mem­ber know­ing about the Ras­ta and Mus­lim gangs and that is all I knew, but now is to­tal chaos on the ground," said a man who has known the life and served 13 years in jail for mur­der.

"Gov­ern­ment has plen­ty of blame to take for this last­ing gang prob­lem," he added.

"Now is a com­bi­na­tion of things they are killing for: to take over some­body's turf or jeal­ousy and all kinds of things," said the ex-con­vict.

Gary Grant, Outreach Supervisor of Project Building Blocks, a Ministry of National Security initiative.

KERWIN PIERRE

'The com­mu­ni­ty is trau­ma­tised'

Gary Grant, Out­reach Su­per­vi­sor of Project Build­ing Blocks, a Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty project (for­mal­ly CURE Vi­o­lence Pro­gramme), has been in the midst of these at-risk com­mu­ni­ties (Mor­vant, Up­per, and Low­er Laven­tille, Sea Lots, Pic­ton, John John, Bel­mont, Gon­za­les, and To­ba­go) try­ing to ef­fect change and help res­i­dents in these ar­eas come to terms with the vi­o­lence. He al­so tries to find ways to en­sure the youths do not be­come in­volved in gang ac­tiv­i­ty, as well as speak and rea­son out with gang mem­bers in the hope of re­duc­ing gun vi­o­lence.

This is what he told the Sun­day Guardian:

"In re­gards to the re­cent shoot­ing in the vicin­i­ty of the school in Rose Hill, this is not some­thing that is new but some­thing that is com­mon. There are al­ways some ran­dom shoot­ings with­in the com­mu­ni­ty be­cause of the num­ber of guns and gangs in the com­mu­ni­ty.

"The com­mu­ni­ty is al­ready trau­ma­tised and chil­dren trau­ma­tised in the com­mu­ni­ty are ex­posed to so many shoot­ings and vi­o­lence. The peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty know how to re­act, they know how to duck to take cov­er and take ac­tion to pre­serve their life be­cause of what ex­ists in the com­mu­ni­ty.

"It was un­for­tu­nate that the in­ci­dent hap­pened, but this time it was caught on cam­era and the schools should be de­clared safe zones with­in the com­mu­ni­ty. I don't be­lieve that the shoot­ing was near the school but they should not be shoot­ing pe­ri­od. In schools that ex­ist with­in these types of com­mu­ni­ties, there should be spe­cial train­ing for the teach­ers and more in­ter­ven­tion for the chil­dren who live with­in the com­mu­ni­ty.

"Project build­ing blocks has been vis­it­ing schools work­ing with the chil­dren by the in­vi­ta­tion of the schools, to talk to chil­dren about gang and gun vi­o­lence and dis­suade them from that kind of life and pro­vide coun­selling sup­port for chil­dren af­fect­ed by gun and gang vi­o­lence. We have been in­ter­act­ing with the per­pe­tra­tors and do­ing me­di­a­tions and in­ter­rup­tions to stop the vi­o­lence in the com­mu­ni­ty."

His­tor­i­cal per­spec­tive

"His­tor­i­cal­ly, it start­ed in the days af­ter the coup, the ear­ly 1990s, and con­tin­ued up to this time. His­tor­i­cal­ly, it was about who killed some­one's broth­er or leader or fa­ther and this con­tin­ues to evolve and added to that too, based on where they come from, they get in­volved in gang ac­tiv­i­ty and be­come gang mem­bers. Be­fore the se­ri­ous gang ac­tiv­i­ty start­ed, there was al­ways ri­val­ry up the hill and down the hill. This ri­val­ry was ei­ther foot­ball, crick­et or break­danc­ing. Now it has evolved where the on­ly means to re­solve con­flict among them is through vi­o­lence. "

Why the 'war'?

"Some­times the war is al­so about turf in the com­mu­ni­ty. One com­mu­ni­ty might have a high vol­ume of per­sons com­ing to buy drugs and that means a lot of mon­ey com­ing in and whichev­er gang con­trols that com­mu­ni­ty it goes in­to their pock­ets. There are fights for drug turf or his­tor­i­cal­ly one gang has been against the oth­er or one com­mu­ni­ty has been in ri­val­ry against the oth­er.

"It has be­come eas­i­er to get guns in the coun­try and there are peo­ple that bring in their own weapons. The young men who are han­dling the guns in the com­mu­ni­ty do not have the re­sources to buy a gun. They are in rub­ber slip­pers and tat­tered clothes and these guns cost $40,000 (the AR15s or Ak47s) in their hands. It means that some­body brings in the guns and puts them in their hands.

"Some of these youths who be­long to gangs came from bro­ken homes and some were bul­lied and tak­en ad­van­tage of and some, be­cause of the fam­i­ly they come from hav­ing to get in­volved. Al­so, there are some that can­not go to school be­cause of the area where the school is lo­cat­ed.

"It may be a ri­val com­mu­ni­ty or where they have to pass, maybe the area of a ri­val gang and they have no choice then but to re­main home or end up in a gang for their pro­tec­tion.

"In talk­ing to many of them, they have dreams and as­pi­ra­tions but in or­der to do that they may have to leave the com­mu­ni­ty and this, in essence, could be a death sen­tence."

So­lu­tions

"There are many pro­grammes that im­pact­ed the com­mu­ni­ty that were not sus­tained. Like the Cit­i­zens Se­cu­ri­ty Pro­gramme for in­stance. Added to that, there are a lot of NGOs that do a lot of good work in the com­mu­ni­ty but do not have the re­sources to con­tin­ue.

"In or­der for this crime sit­u­a­tion and up­surge in vi­o­lence to turn around it will take a gen­er­a­tion of con­sis­tent sus­tained pro­grammes in or­der to bring about the change that is need­ed.

"The type of pro­grammes have to be hands-on in the com­mu­ni­ty, build re­la­tion­ships with the com­mu­ni­ty and al­low per­pe­tra­tors to gain their trust and at the same time deal with the risk fac­tors that per­pet­u­ate this type of be­hav­iour. These pro­grammes have to be sus­tained over a long pe­ri­od of time, re­gard­less of if the Gov­ern­ment changes, to see re­sults."