Jensen La Vende

For the sec­ond time this year, gun­men dis­re­gard­ed the sanc­ti­ty of a med­ical in­sti­tu­tion and mur­dered some­one on the com­pound.

The lat­est killing took place at 10.30 am yes­ter­day, when two men ap­proached St James Med­ical Com­plex work­er Ja­maal Watts and one of them shot him.

Eye­wit­ness­es told Guardian Me­dia that Watts, a dai­ly paid work­er from Belle Eau Road, Bel­mont, was cut­ting grass on a field at the back of the com­plex when he was shot.

The men re­port­ed­ly drove in­to the com­pound, parked, came out and looked at Watts for some time be­fore ap­proach­ing him. One of the men and Watts had a brief scuf­fle be­fore he was shot. The two men then ran off, jumped in the car and es­caped.

Watts was rushed to the near­by Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment, where he died while be­ing treat­ed.

Work­ers said they had to scam­per for safe­ty dur­ing the shoot­ing, which forced the evac­u­a­tion of some staff and pa­tients.

One pa­tient who fled af­ter the shoot­ing said, “It was just crazy.”

She said the shoot­ing left her feel­ing un­easy but said her faith in God kept her feel­ing safe.

“I feel­ing safe but not a hun­dred per cent. I will al­ways watch my sur­round­ings and try to be mind­ful. Even at the hos­pi­tal or your own home, you are not safe. But for me, I does ask God to cov­er me and watch over me.”

Watts’ death is the sec­ond at a North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NWRHA) fa­cil­i­ty, af­ter one man was mur­dered at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in June, af­ter he had been tak­en there for treat­ment fol­low­ing a shoot­ing in Bel­mont in which three of his friends were killed.

Gang-re­lat­ed shoot­ing

Up to press time, po­lice had la­belled Watts’ mur­der was gang-re­lat­ed. How­ev­er, they could not say if Watts him­self was a mem­ber of any gang.

Po­lice said pre­lim­i­nary re­ports sug­gest that Watts’ killing was linked to the shoot­ing death of Jah­van­nie “Van­nie” James, 21, of Up­per St Barb’s Road, Bel­mont. James and a 31-year-old St Fran­cois Val­ley Road man were shot while fix­ing a car at Darceuil Street, Bel­mont, last Thurs­day.

Com­ment­ing on yes­ter­day’s killing, Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art ap­pealed to the crim­i­nals to leave a safe space for all.

“What was once a sa­cred place, a place where these in­di­vid­u­als may not come in to do par­tic­u­lar crimes, they have lost that abil­i­ty to see that the hos­pi­tal is a place that they them­selves may need help at, at some time. We want to speak to those in­di­vid­u­als to let them know, please al­low hos­pi­tal in­sti­tu­tions to be that safe space. It is for both sides and for all per­sons, where per­sons can come in and do their work and see about your own fam­i­ly, which we know you would want hap­pen,” Stu­art said.

With yes­ter­day’s killing and the mur­ders at the PoS­GH in June, Stu­art said the at­mos­phere at the NWRHA was get­ting worse dai­ly. He al­so re­called staff mem­bers hav­ing to re­port to po­lice that they had re­ceived en­velopes with bul­lets in them.

The June 2 mur­der saw Kevin King be­ing fol­lowed from Gon­za­les and killed at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

King and his three friends, Jay­den Reyes, Ab­dul Williams, and Jonathan Ar­joon, were part of a group shot at while lim­ing along Lange Street, Gon­za­les. Af­ter King was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal, gun­men at­tacked him again on the com­pound.

Af­ter the mur­der at the PoS­GH a gate was in­stalled to pre­vent easy ac­cess to the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment, along with oth­er se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures.

NWRHA safe­ty con­cern

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, NWRHA CEO An­tho­ny Blake said im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter Watts’ killing, the fa­cil­i­ty’s emer­gency se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols were ac­ti­vat­ed, with the TTPS ar­riv­ing soon af­ter.

Blake al­so met with rel­a­tives of Watts and staff and of­fered coun­selling to both.

Stu­art said af­ter the June 2 mur­der, his as­so­ci­a­tion had raised se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns about both the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and St James Med­ical Com­plex.

“Is on­ly last week we would have ex­pressed our con­cerns when there was an­oth­er close shoot­ing at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, and we iden­ti­fied both the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and the St James Med­ical Com­plex as very high-risk ar­eas, in ad­di­tion to a num­ber of the health fa­cil­i­ties where nurs­ing per­son­nel is ex­pect­ed to op­er­ate un­der the NWRHA.”

He said the time has come for de­ci­sive ac­tion be­fore it gets out of con­trol.

“We re­al­ly hope that the Min­istry of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty will meet with the as­so­ci­a­tion at some point in time and im­ple­ment some of the rec­om­men­da­tions we have made pri­or to this in­ci­dent,” he said.

Stu­art said pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty may not be best suit­ed to ad­dress the cur­rent se­cu­ri­ty is­sues and sug­gest­ed state en­ti­ties such as the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (MTS).

He said af­ter the PoS­GH killing, se­cu­ri­ty sug­ges­tions were dis­missed by the au­thor­i­ties, who said the hos­pi­tal should not mir­ror a prison. Stu­art said that think­ing may now need to be re­vis­it­ed.

“Those fa­cil­i­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly Port-of-Spain and St James Med­ical Com­plex may need to be walled off. It used to be once a year some­thing like this hap­pens, it has moved to once a month and now it’s al­most on a week­ly ba­sis. Let it not reach on a dai­ly ba­sis, where we have these turf wars as it were.”

In a voice note mes­sage yes­ter­day, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh of­fered con­do­lences to Watts’ fam­i­ly and promised the NWRHA will work with the po­lice to bring the killers to jus­tice.

“We are as­sist­ing the TTPS with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and will do all that is pos­si­ble to bring the per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice,” Deyals­ingh said.

Al­so in a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the TTPS con­demned the brazen at­tack. The re­lease said the po­lice are com­mit­ted to bring­ing those re­spon­si­ble to jus­tice and urged any­one with in­for­ma­tion to come for­ward as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.