May­hem and chaos erupt­ed in the carpark of the Courts Mega­s­tore in San Juan as gun­shots rang out send­ing Christ­mas shop­pers and staff in­side the store to scam­per for cov­er. In the end, two sib­lings lay dead and two oth­ers were on the ground nurs­ing gun­shot in­juries. The shoot­er was an off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer.

What prompt­ed the dead­ly shoot­ing is now the sub­ject of three in­ves­ti­ga­tions by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty and the TTPS Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau.

Yes­ter­day as news of the in­ci­dent broke, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) claimed the shoot­ing in the carpark of the Courts Mega­s­tore was the re­sult of an at­tempt­ed rob­bery of an off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer but rel­a­tives of the two sib­lings killed at the scene strong­ly de­nied this.

Hours af­ter the in­ci­dent, which al­so sent three oth­ers, in­clud­ing the off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer to the hos­pi­tal, Uni­com­er (Trinidad) Ltd dis­tanced it­self from the furore which it claimed had re­sult­ed from a “pri­vate fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tion” that had been tak­ing place on its com­pound.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, the may­hem un­fold­ed some­time be­tween 12.30 pm and 1 pm in the carpark of the Mega­s­tore.

As shop­pers in­side sought cov­er, mo­torists slowed down to record what was tak­ing place on the com­pound.

When the gun­fire ceased, sib­lings Sime­on, 33, and Sini­aya Lessey, 35, lay dead and Sime­on’s wife Ker­rey-Ann Moore and fam­i­ly friend Nathan Pierre, were left nurs­ing in­juries.

Moore and Pierre both un­der­went emer­gency surgery at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope yes­ter­day.

Numb and hold­ing back her tears when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed her house at Trou Macaque, Laven­tille yes­ter­day, moth­er of the de­ceased sib­lings, Abi­gail John said the in­ci­dent stemmed from an al­leged scam her daugh­ter Sini­aya fell vic­tim to.

Sime­on, who was the fa­ther of an eight-year-old girl, worked as a pri­vate con­trac­tor; while Sini­aya, who was the moth­er of a three-year-old boy, had been em­ployed with the House of An­gos­tu­ra, Laven­tille.

She was pre­sent­ed with a ten-year long-ser­vice award last week.

Guardian Me­dia learned it was on­ly last week that Sini­aya re­port­ed­ly hand­ed over $11,000 in cash to a po­lice of­fi­cer to fa­cil­i­tate the pur­chase of fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances from Courts, at huge­ly dis­count­ed prices.

“You have a big page up on Face­book Mar­ket­place stat­ing that I am work­ing at Courts, and if you want things by Courts, you can get it at half price.”

John said, “She went, she met with him, she pick out some stuff and last week she went and gave him $11,000 for all that she had to get.”

“Since that, he (had) been run­ning she around.”

Claim­ing Sini­aya would have lodged a re­port on De­cem­ber 9 at the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion, John said the of­fi­cer con­tin­ued to refuse her daugh­ter’s calls and had blocked her num­ber.

The griev­ing moth­er said it was on­ly yes­ter­day that Sini­aya asked her sis­ter-in-law to mes­sage the of­fi­cer and pre­tend to be in­ter­est­ed in pur­chas­ing some items. John said when the four ar­rived at Courts af­ter be­ing told to come there, “He (the of­fi­cer) was sit­ting in the van. He and the oth­ers who were with him. It wasn’t him alone.”

John said when Sini­aya, Sime­on and the two oth­ers con­front­ed the po­lice­man de­mand­ing her mon­ey be re­turned, the sit­u­a­tion turned vi­o­lent and dead­ly.

She urged busi­ness­es to care­ful­ly screen peo­ple they hired to work for them.

John cried, “It is two chil­dren I lose. How, I go­ing to stand up now?”

Ex­press­ing hurt and anger af­ter the po­lice of­fi­cers who were present at the scene, re­fused to speak with her, John said, “Not an of­fi­cer came and spoke to me.”

“I see my two chil­dren ly­ing down like dog and not an of­fi­cer could come and tell me noth­ing?”

Up to 6 pm yes­ter­day, no one from the TTPS had vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly’s home at Dawn Street.

Guardian Me­dia was told that sev­er­al peo­ple have al­leged­ly come for­ward claim­ing to have seen a po­lice of­fi­cer drop­ping off Sini­aya last week, af­ter she hand­ed over the mon­ey.

John said she was aghast to see re­ports on so­cial me­dia emerg­ing hours af­ter the in­ci­dent, from oth­er peo­ple who had al­leged­ly fall­en vic­tim to the same scam.

John said while she is grief-strick­en and still reel­ing in shock, she would leave the mat­ter in God’s hands as she is sure jus­tice will pre­vail.

In­di­cat­ing she too could have been caught up af­ter Sini­aya told her of the good deals, John said she de­clined as she was not yet ready.

John said her daugh­ter worked hard for her mon­ey and to pro­vide for her child who is now left with­out a moth­er. “This is the end re­sult of you tak­ing her mon­ey?” John ques­tioned.

The emo­tion­al woman said her Christ­mas was can­celled with the deaths of her two chil­dren, whose fu­ner­als she now had to plan.

Courts: Safe­ty of ut­most im­por­tance

Uni­com­er (Trinidad) Ltd is­sued a re­lease about the in­ci­dent yes­ter­day.

It said, “Based on pre­lim­i­nary in­for­ma­tion re­ceived from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), the off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer was en­gaged in a pri­vate fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tion at the Courts Mega­s­tore carpark.

“The trans­ac­tion be­tween the of­fi­cer and the five in­di­vid­u­als fa­cil­i­tat­ing the ‘trans­ac­tion’, es­ca­lat­ed in­to a phys­i­cal al­ter­ca­tion. The in­di­vid­u­als were un­aware that the off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer was armed.”

The es­tab­lish­ment said im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent, the au­thor­i­ties and emer­gency ser­vices were con­tact­ed, and the Courts Mega­s­tore lo­ca­tion was closed.

“All staff were di­rect­ed to con­tact our Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme to fa­cil­i­tate coun­selling ser­vices, fol­low­ing the trau­mat­ic oc­cur­rence,” it said.

Uni­com­er (Trinidad) Ltd sought to re­as­sure the pub­lic that se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty were a high pri­or­i­ty for staff and cus­tomers.

As such, it re­in­forced, “We would like to re­it­er­ate that our carpark serves as a space for our cus­tomers to park their ve­hi­cles while vis­it­ing our stores. They should not be used for any pri­vate fi­nan­cial/ busi­ness trans­ac­tions.

“Our cus­tomers’ safe­ty and the safe­ty of our staff is of ut­most im­por­tance to us. This in­ci­dent, while iso­lat­ed in na­ture, will be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly by our se­cu­ri­ty team. All ef­forts would be made to en­sure that the shop­ping ex­pe­ri­ence for all dur­ing the fes­tive sea­son re­mains as safe as pos­si­ble.”

In the mean­time, the pub­lic has been urged to re­port any in­for­ma­tion that can as­sist in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion to the of­fice of the Snr Supt, North East­ern Di­vi­sion, Mervyn Ed­wards at 625-3283.

Ed­wards ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to John and the fam­i­ly as he said the mat­ter would be thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

ASP Daniel Her­nan­dez has been as­signed to lead the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Mean­while, the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) will al­so con­duct a par­al­lel in­ves­ti­ga­tion as well as the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau which al­so probes al­leged mis­con­duct by po­lice of­fi­cers.