Jensen La Vende

Six­ty feet away from the state-of-art Dun­can Street po­lice post and hours af­ter he had an ar­gu­ment with his vic­tim over a pie, a man re­port­ed­ly walked up to a 56-year-old street ven­dor and shot him once in the head.Ralph "Ral­phie" Pe­ters is now ward­ed in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal af­ter he was shot in the fore­head by his at­tack­er who ran in the di­rec­tion of Pic­cadil­ly Street and es­caped.

Po­lice said the shoot­ing took place around 1.15 pm while Pe­ters, who lives at Pic­ton Road, Laven­tille, was sell­ing fruit at the cor­ner of Dun­can and Queen Streets.Po­lice said the shoot­er, who was cap­tured on closed-cir­cuit cam­eras, fired three shots at his tar­get. They are aware of who they are look­ing for and be­lieve an ar­rest would be made soon.

Po­lice said they heard three shots and when they came out­side they saw Pe­ters bleed­ing at the side of the road and took him to the hos­pi­tal. They were wash­ing blood out of their ve­hi­cle when the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the scene.Pe­ters' son, Daniel, who was pack­ing away his fa­ther's cart, said it was just un­fair what hap­pened."The man came to make an hon­est hus­tle. This has to be fixed. Some­thing has to be done," Pe­ters said.

In an un­re­lat­ed in­ci­dent, po­lice were at Block 8, Laven­tille, yes­ter­day col­lect­ing ev­i­dence af­ter an­oth­er shootout be­tween peo­ple from the area and op­pos­ing gangs from Pic­ton Road.Po­lice who were on the scene when the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed said they were called af­ter a res­i­dent re­turned home and found a bul­let cas­ing out­side her door.

Res­i­dents, in­clud­ing those of Pic­ton Road, showed the me­dia large bul­let holes at the side of their homes. The on­go­ing war be­tween the two ar­eas led to the shoot­ing deaths of 39-year-old moth­er of five, Pet­ri­na Sa­landy, and 15-year-old Ro­han Ayres, at St Paul Street on Sun­day morn­ing.

Po­lice on the scene at Block 8 told the T&T Guardian a horse which used to graze at low­er Block 8, which is list­ed as part of the "Mus­lim" side of the Ras­ta City vs Mus­lim war, has been stolen and is now be­ing kept in the Beetham Gar­dens which falls un­der the Ras­ta City fac­tion.Po­lice said the gangs would con­sid­er that "a sign of dis­re­spect," and they ex­pect­ed re­tal­i­a­tion.