Camille Clarke

Dra­ma un­fold­ed yes­ter­day as two men were killed and two in­no­cent by-standers shot in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents as gang war­fare con­tin­ued at Nel­son and George Streets in Port-of-Spain. The vic­tims have been iden­ti­fied as Saliss "Sayo" Roberts, 16, of John John, who was shot dead by the po­lice on Nel­son Street and Mar­vin Si­mon, 41, of East­ern Quar­ry. Smith, po­lice said, was killed by a gun­man at George Street. Noel Boyce, 52, of Build­ing 24, Dun­can Street, and Michael Bak­er, 55, of Mc­Shine Ter­race in Bel­mont who were al­so shot were up to late yes­ter­day ward­ed at hos­pi­tal.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice of­fi­cers of the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion­al Task Force, were on an ex­er­cise in search of il­le­gal arms and am­mu­ni­tion around 10 am when they heard loud ex­plo­sions in the vicin­i­ty of Fau­re Street. Two gun­men fired at the of­fi­cers and the po­lice re­turned fire. Dur­ing the gun­fire Roberts was hit. The oth­er sus­pect, po­lice said, fled on foot. A search was made and two pis­tols and a re­volver were re­port­ed­ly seized by the po­lice and 27 spent shells were re­cov­ered from the scene. Roberts was rushed to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.

Po­lice be­lieve the gun­men were on their way to Dun­can Street to "car­ry out a reprisal shoot­ing" for Kei­th El­don Joseph. Joseph, 53, of no fixed place of abode was shot dead on Thurs­day morn­ing out­side the Nel­son Street apart­ment build­ing. The au­top­sy re­vealed Joseph died of in­ter­nal in­juries and haem­or­rhage due to gun­shot wounds to the chest. In the sec­ond in­ci­dent, Si­mon was sit­ting out­side "The Plan­nings" when a lone gun­man opened fire on him around 10.40 am. Smith was shot in the head and up­per body. He died on the spot.

Eye­wit­ness­es claimed the gun­men then ran through Bath Street, East-Dry-Riv­er. The killings of Roberts and Smith oc­curred mere me­tres from the East­ern Boys' Pri­ma­ry School and the South­east Sec­ondary School in Port-of-Spain. One con­cerned res­i­dent said, "Is on­ly killers liv­ing down there. They have no re­spect for hu­man life. Is on­ly young boys do­ing this thing." Oth­ers claimed gun­men were "swamp­ing" George and Nel­son Streets since the Po­lice Mo­bile Unit at Man­go Rose on Pic­cadil­ly Street was re­lo­cat­ed. Po­lice con­firmed there were nu­mer­ous re­ports of "gun­men in the com­mu­ni­ty" since the re­moval of the unit. One res­i­dent, ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, was re­cent­ly made to "kneel on the ground with a gun to his head." Si­mon's death has pushed the mur­der toll to 38 for the year. Besson Street po­lice and of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.