Jensen La Vende

Mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices and Des­per­lie Cres­cent, Laven­tille, res­i­dents are point­ing fin­gers at each oth­er fol­low­ing the killing of three men in the area on Thurs­day night.Res­i­dents yes­ter­day claimed re­put­ed gang leader Dil­lon "Bandy" Skeete, 30, Joel Tash, 22, and Ja­maican na­tion­al Sher­win Thomas were killed by well trained, masked sol­diers act­ing un­der the guid­ance of po­lice.

Skeete was a sus­pect in the mur­der of reg­i­ment of­fi­cer Lance Cor­po­ral Kay­o­de Thomas. Thomas, 32, was shot dead on June 29 while on his way to his home at Bev­er­ly Hills, Laven­tille.Sher­win Thomas was the cousin of Ja­maica reg­gae singer Lewin "Louis Cul­ture" Brown. Thomas and Brown were in T&T for the past two weeks wrap­ping up film­ing of a movie in Laven­tille, but the T&T Guardian was un­able to con­firm if Brown was still here.

How­ev­er, the po­lice de­nied any mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices were in­volved in the killings.At a press con­fer­ence at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, hours af­ter the killings, act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams was adamant that the killers were not law en­force­ment of­fi­cers but could not give any mo­tive as to the killing of the three men.

Williams de­nied res­i­dents' claims that the men's killers were mem­bers of the reg­i­ment. Asked how he was cer­tain, he said po­lice had in­ter­viewed wit­ness­es dur­ing their ini­tial in­ves­ti­ga­tions and they re­vealed the killers were not law en­force­ment of­fi­cers.How­ev­er, eye­wit­ness­es told the T&T Guardian ear­li­er the killers iden­ti­fied them­selves as mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices and were wear­ing all-black cloth­ing with a mono­gram on their tops re­sem­bling that of the reg­i­ment's spe­cial forces unit.

Con­tact­ed on the al­le­ga­tions yes­ter­day, the reg­i­ment's pub­lic li­ai­son of­fi­cer, Capt Ste­fan Af­fon­so, said the state­ments were un­for­tu­nate and not true.He said the deaths of the men were a loss and any loss of cit­i­zens' lives was a loss to the coun­try.Af­fon­so de­nied Skeete was be­ing pur­sued by the reg­i­ment in con­nec­tion with Thomas' killing and called on mem­bers of the pub­lic who may have in­for­ma­tion on crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty to come for­ward rather than take mat­ters in­to their own hands and at­tack the po­lice.

Short­ly af­ter Thomas' killing, mem­bers of the reg­i­ment searched the homes of Skeete's rel­a­tives at Laven­tille, Champ Fleurs, To­co and Cou­va, seek­ing him out.

T&T Guardian vis­it

Skeete's broth­er, Du­ane, was al­so placed un­der scruti­ny in Grena­da and was held there for two days with­out charge and re­leased with­out a prop­er ex­pla­na­tion as to why he was de­tained.His at­tor­ney then told the T&T Guardian that Du­ane was be­ing held on the re­quest of the T&T au­thor­i­ties.Skeete vis­it­ed the T&T Guardian's of­fices on Ju­ly 14 to tell his side of the sto­ry. Mo­ments af­ter the in­ter­view was con­duct­ed, mem­bers of the De­fence Force vis­it­ed the T&T Guardian's of­fices look­ing for Skeete.

They left af­ter be­ing told he was not in the build­ing but mo­ments lat­er the com­pa­ny re­ceived a call say­ing there was a bomb in the build­ing. That mat­ter was still un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion up to yes­ter­day.Dur­ing the press con­fer­ence, Williams said Skeete was one of the sus­pects in Thomas' mur­der. This dif­fered from in­for­ma­tion the po­lice gave the me­dia on Skeete soon af­ter Thomas was killed.

Asked when Skeete be­came a sus­pect, since po­lice had re­peat­ed­ly de­nied he was want­ed by them, while Skeete's rel­a­tives had al­so made al­le­ga­tions that sol­diers were "hunt­ing him down," Williams said:

"I am sur­prised you are look­ing for an an­swer to that ques­tion but you will not get it from me.

"At the time of his death (Skeete) he was a sus­pect as many oth­er per­sons have been a sus­pect in that in­ves­ti­ga­tion."

Asked if Skeete had ever sought po­lice pro­tec­tion from the reg­i­ment be­cause he was fear­ful they want­ed him dead, Williams said he was un­aware and passed the ques­tion to his Deputy Com­mis­sion­er (Crime) Glen Hack­ett who de­nied any knowl­edge of that.

Eye­wit­ness fearskillers will re­turn

An eye­wit­ness to the killing of three men, among them a re­put­ed gang leader and mur­der sus­pect, says she is fear­ful the killers, whom she be­lieves are mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment, will re­turn to ex­e­cute her.Speak­ing hours af­ter the killings yes­ter­day, the young moth­er of two said she was with Dil­lon Skeete, 30, Joel Tash, 22, and Ja­maican Sher­win Thomas when they were killed on Thurs­day night.

She re­called she was with nine men lim­ing near Skeete's of­fice at Des­per­lie Cres­cent when two ve­hi­cles passed them.The woman said a marked po­lice ve­hi­cle passed first, then an un­marked Nis­san X-Trail passed. She said she then saw the dri­vers of both ve­hi­cles speak to each oth­er be­fore the marked po­lice ve­hi­cle left."'Ay po­lice, every­body go up on the wall,'" she said were the first words out of the mouths of the masked men when they re­turned and ap­proached the group.

The woman said she asked to see iden­ti­fi­ca­tion but in­stead one of the men placed a gun to her chest and said "'It have no gyal thing here, I would kill you.'" She said she was or­dered to kneel and one of the killers told her he knew her face and could come back for her.

While the two were ar­gu­ing, she said, the oth­er men were be­gin­ning to kneel with their hands in the air. One the masked men then stepped away from the group to an­swer a call. He then re­turned and shot Skeete, sig­nalling the oth­ers to "spray down" (shoot) the oth­er men.

She ran at this point, leav­ing be­hind her friends as they were rid­dled with bul­lets. She said the killer/s shot at her but missed. The woman said she saw Thomas, an ac­tor who came to film a movie, ti­tled "You Ain't No Killer", gasp­ing for breath as one of the killers tried to re­move Skeete's gold chain.She added: "I have two chil­dren to live for. They does al­ways come and kill peo­ple in here and get away with it. What they does do about it. This is not the first time.

"That was ex­e­cu­tion, I must be fright­ened af­ter I near­ly see death. I know they would come and do me some­thing be­cause they telling me 'I mark­ing your face, you is the one who see every­thing'."That is a threat, so I know if I dead to­day or to­mor­row I know is ei­ther a po­lice or a sol­dier kill me."Al­though she didn't see the shoot­ing, she said the way the killers op­er­at­ed and the heavy weapon­ry they had sug­gest­ed they were mil­i­tary.

"Oh no, it wasn't bad boys. The van went in and come out and peo­ple see the van. I hear the shots. I had to ban up my knees be­cause when I heard the shots I dropped to my knees and bawl. Up here qui­et and nice," she said.Speak­ing with the me­dia at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day, Tash's fa­ther, Noel, said his son would have cel­e­brat­ed his 23rd birth­day next month and was an as­pir­ing po­lice­man.

He said his son was killed for vis­it­ing his friends. "He used to go and vis­it rel­a­tives in Laven­tille be­cause he moved out and I al­ways warned him about go­ing to Laven­tille in the night," Noel said.He said his child had signed up to be­come a spe­cial re­serve po­lice of­fi­cer but be­came ill for one week and had to restart the process.

Skeete's rel­a­tives, who were al­so at the FSC, said he was hunt­ed by sol­diers and even­tu­al­ly killed be­cause he was la­belled a sus­pect in the June 29 mur­der of Lance Cor­po­ral

Kay­o­de Thomas.

They were firm in their con­vic­tion that he was mur­dered by those sworn to up­hold jus­tice and the law.They said he had had a pre­mo­ni­tion he would be killed soon. The men's killing have tak­en the mur­der toll to 300 for the year, ten more than last year.