Ralph Ban­warie

An ear­ly morn­ing shoot­ing at a pop­u­lar lim­ing spot in San­gre Grande has left two peo­ple dead and two oth­ers fight­ing for their lives at the hos­pi­tal af­ter un­der­go­ing emer­gency surg­eries.

The shoot­ing took place at Lounge 69, East­ern Main Road, Guaico, San­gre Grande, around 1.30 am.

The dead men have been iden­ti­fied as Ricky Roop­nar­ine, al­so called “Shorley”, 43, and Kendell Hodges, 39, of Coalmine, San­gre Grande.

Roop­nar­ine was seen ly­ing mo­tion­less on the pave­ment with sev­er­al gun­shot wounds to his body. Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr A Ram­per­sad or­dered the re­moval of the body to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal mor­tu­ary, pend­ing an au­top­sy to­mor­row. The oth­er vic­tim, who was shot in the ab­domen and left side of his body, was pro­nounced dead at 3:22 am while re­ceiv­ing treat­ment at the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal.

Adriel Pablo, 28, of To­co Main Road, San­gre Grande, and Yulie Nunez, 23, a Venezue­lan na­tion­al who were both shot, un­der­went emer­gency surgery at the hos­pi­tal and were re­port­ed­ly “fight­ing for their lives” up un­til yes­ter­day evening. 

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the home of Kendell’s moth­er, De­bra Hodges, at George Karim Street, San­gre Grande, the griev­ing woman said she was yet to be con­vinced that her son, whom she spoke to hours be­fore, was dead.

She said she spoke to him af­ter lunch on Fri­day at San­gre Grande and played with his face, ask­ing him how he was look­ing so nice. She de­scribed him as her “eye­ball”.

Re­mind­ing him to an­swer the phone when she calls, Hodges said he told her he had a new phone and that when he gets to work at Lounge 69, where he has been work­ing as a DJ since it opened, he will call her. “That was the last con­ver­sa­tion I had with my lov­ing son, and I nev­er be­lieved that he was go­ing to die. I nev­er re­ceived any call (from him), but the call I re­ceived around 2 am on Sat­ur­day was that ‘Kendell is dead.'”

She walked to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal along with a rel­a­tive and then wait­ed pa­tient­ly to see if it was her son ly­ing in the Ca­su­al­ty De­part­ment un­der a white sheet. When the sheet was re­moved, Hodges “rushed to­wards him, played with him, and kissed him on his face.”

The nurse then took her to a room and gave her a wal­let with mon­ey, a gold chain, a watch, and a gold ring that was found on Kendell. Hodges said she cried.

Kendell told his moth­er that he ap­plied for jobs all over but was un­able to find em­ploy­ment. So he worked as a DJ at Lounge 69 and told her, “I can buy food and cloth­ing to sup­port my­self in­stead of de­pend­ing on you.” 

Hodges plead­ed with the killers to put down the guns and “get the right tar­get be­fore killing in­no­cent peo­ple.”

She added, “My son nev­er drank or got in­volved in any crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. He is al­ways oc­cu­pied with some­thing con­struc­tive. He loved mu­sic, and he died lov­ing mu­sic.”

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, around 1 am two slim-built men, armed with firearms, were seen along the road­way, and sev­er­al loud ex­plo­sions were lat­er heard.

A per­son who spoke to the po­lice said she be­came fear­ful for her life and sought cov­er. Af­ter the loud ex­plo­sions ceased, she made checks and ob­served two peo­ple ly­ing along the pave­ment in front of Lounge 69, and peo­ple were as­sist­ing them.

A re­port was made to the San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion, and they re­spond­ed.

PC Daniel, WPC Kheerai Roop­nar­ine, and Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tors processed the scene and re­cov­ered 15 spent 9mm shells and a pro­jec­tile.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing by W/Cpl El­cock.

Lounge 69 own­er: Crim­i­nals con­tin­ue to ram­page the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty 

The own­er of Lounge 69, in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, said it was re­port­ed that around 1 am Roop­nar­ine ex­it­ed the pub af­ter stay­ing for about 20 min­utes. While stand­ing next to his ve­hi­cle, two men alight­ed from an­oth­er ve­hi­cle parked be­hind Roop­nar­ine’s and be­gan shoot­ing at him. He fell on the pave­ment and died. Kendell, who is a DJ at the pub, was al­so shot.

The own­er, who asked for his name to be with­held, said Roop­nar­ine did not vis­it his lounge for about three months but re­turned on Fri­day night. 

He em­pha­sised that he has all se­cu­ri­ty de­vices in place at his busi­ness, and the in­ci­dent did not hap­pen in­side his pub. “I have no con­trol over what hap­pens on the na­tion road,” he said.

He said crime was get­ting worse with no so­lu­tion for the prob­lem. “The crim­i­nals con­tin­ue to ram­page the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and will con­tin­ue be­cause they have no fear of get­ting caught,” he added.

The busi­ness­man is now hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers about hir­ing uni­formed po­lice for his pub dur­ing busi­ness hours.

He said his busi­ness would re­main closed as a mark of re­spect for Kendell Hodges, who is con­sid­ered a fam­i­ly mem­ber and one who has con­tributed to the growth of his busi­ness.

Po­lice: We don’t have enough man­pow­er or ve­hi­cles

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent for the area, Ryan Khan, said there was not enough man­pow­er and ve­hi­cles to pa­trol all ar­eas in San­gre Grande. He said they have been plac­ing em­pha­sis on the hot spots.

“It is un­for­tu­nate that two per­sons lost their lives by the gun. Crim­i­nals are very in­tel­li­gent and will make their move as soon as the pa­trol is re­moved from their lo­ca­tion.”

The vic­tim, who died on the spot, was well known to the po­lice and is be­lieved to be the rel­a­tive of a coun­cil­lor of San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Roop­nar­ine’s rel­a­tives, they were in tears and said they were un­able to com­ment.