An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The cries of res­i­dents at El Do­ra­do Road, Tu­na­puna, yes­ter­day mir­rored sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments ex­pressed by those in Diego Mar­tin on Fri­day, fol­low­ing yet an­oth­er dou­ble mur­der.

“Them fel­las was in­no­cent men,” the res­i­dents said, hours af­ter Je­sus Sergeant, 18, and Kyle Alexan­der, 29, were gunned down on Sat­ur­day night.

While rel­a­tives de­clined to speak with re­porters yes­ter­day, res­i­dents liv­ing close by open­ly mourned their pass­ing, say­ing they were not the in­tend­ed tar­gets.

The two vic­tims lived a stone’s throw from where they were gunned down at the cor­ner of Mar­cano Dri­ve and El Do­ra­do Road, Tu­na­puna.

A vol­ley of gun­shots were heard around 9.30 pm, fol­low­ing which a sil­ver Nis­san Ti­i­da was seen speed­ing off.

Up­on check­ing, res­i­dents found four peo­ple bleed­ing from gun­shot wounds and rushed them to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope.

Sergeant and Alexan­der were pro­nounced dead on ar­rival, while the oth­er two were treat­ed and ward­ed.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the com­mu­ni­ty yes­ter­day, one res­i­dent who knew the two de­scribed them as “good youths.”

He re­vealed, “I know them from com­ing to take a sweat. Them don’t be in any­thing.”

An­oth­er who said he sought cov­er when the shoot­ing be­gan, said, “I was on the bed when I hear gr­rrrrr, gr­rrrrr, gr­rrrrr... bul­let like rain. I ring the po­lice and tell them it have a shoot­ing and I fraid to come out. When they come, I hear is two dead and two bad­ly off. I dun­no what cause it.”

Say­ing the two de­ceased were in­no­cent and not in any­thing, he re­called a sim­i­lar tragedy when three sib­lings were gunned down in a near­by house sev­er­al years ago.

A third res­i­dent urged the po­lice to look with­in their own ranks, as he claimed, “It have ri­val drug blocks op­er­at­ing up here. A po­lice­man run­ning one and like he not mak­ing like he used to ... so he clean­ing house.”

One man said min­utes be­fore the dead­ly shoot­ing, a heav­i­ly tint­ed car ar­rived and parked in front of Hillview Col­lege, where it sat idling for a while be­fore dri­ving off.

Point­ing to an over­head cam­era at the four-cor­ner in­ter­sec­tion, he urged law­men to re­view the footage. A rel­a­tive of the de­ceased men, whose short pants, feet and slip­pers were caked in dried blood, re­count­ed that the men were cel­e­brat­ing the 2-1 win by Man­ches­ter City over New­cas­tle in the Eng­lish Pre­mier League hours ear­li­er.

He said the men had been back and forth to the cor­ner shop buy­ing beers and drink­ing, as they were hap­py their team had emerged vic­to­ri­ous in the match. He ap­peared dazed as he re­called their cel­e­bra­to­ry mood and how hap­py they had been, join­ing oth­er men from the com­mu­ni­ty on the road.

Just hours be­fore this in­ci­dent, Chris­t­ian Achille and Mar­cus Best were killed on Fri­day night at Sea Trace, Bagatelle, Diego Mar­tin, dur­ing a sim­i­lar-style shoot­ing.

Achille, 53, of Tex­eira Street, Diego Mar­tin; and Best, 31, of Ci­ca­da Dri­ve, Riv­er Es­tate, Diego Mar­tin, were killed at Dip­stick’s En­ter­prise Au­to Body Works Shop, Diego Mar­tin.