Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of Scor­pi­on Al­ley, Care­nage, had to run for cov­er on Tues­day night when gun­men stormed a house in the area, killing two broth­ers.

The at­tack came less than 24 hours af­ter Eli­jah Fer­gu­son and Leon Sylvester were gunned down in the same area on Mon­day night.

Po­lice said Joshua George, 23, and Is­rael Le­tren, 32, were at a house around 9 pm when a group of gun­men ran in, shoot­ing them sev­er­al times be­fore run­ning away.

On check­ing, res­i­dents saw George bleed­ing on the floor of the kitchen and Le­tren bleed­ing in the bath­room.

West­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice were called in with a dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer who de­clared both men dead.

Crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors al­so vis­it­ed the scene and found 97 spent 5.56 shells.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors sus­pect the mur­ders may be part of an on­go­ing gang war in Care­nage but Justi­na Le­tren, the moth­er of both men, in­sists they were not part of any feud.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day, the el­der Le­tren said she felt emp­ty hav­ing lost two of her sons in a sin­gle in­ci­dent. She had to be con­soled by rel­a­tives and fu­ner­al home staff at the cen­tre.

Le­tren said she was at home when she was about to lis­ten to a Gospel pro­gramme on the ra­dio that evening when she heard the sound of gun­fire near­by.

“I home and I hear­ing this thing and it’s like rain­drops on your house the kind of shots that was fired.

“I just start to hear this noise.

“The kind of guns they are us­ing ... my God. Where are they get­ting these things?

“It sounds like the kind of weapons the po­lice have some­times.

“It is very hurt­ful to see my two boys have to go down that way.”

Le­tren said she tried to call her sons on their cell­phones but did not get any an­swers.

She then called an­oth­er rel­a­tive near­by and be­came wor­ried when she heard scream­ing.

Le­tren said she ven­tured out to see for her­self what hap­pened de­spite warn­ings from her hus­band over the pos­si­ble dan­gers out­side.

George worked as a taxi dri­ver and Le­tren worked as a se­cu­ri­ty guard.

The el­der Le­tren said while she did not know ei­ther one of her sons to be in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, she called on young men who may be in­volved in crime to de­vel­op a stronger re­la­tion­ship with God.

“Put down the guns and pick up Je­sus.

“Let Je­sus be our weapon of war­fare. It (the guns) not do­ing any­thing for us.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so spoke to a rel­a­tive who was near the house where George and Le­tren were killed.

The rel­a­tive, who asked not to be named, said she jumped in­to a near­by drain to avoid the killers.

She said the broth­ers were lim­ing at the house when the gun­men were spot­ted near­by.

“There was a guy in front of me, was fac­ing in the op­po­site di­rec­tion to me and I heard him say, ‘Ay look them com­ing’ and he be­gan to run.

“I ran too, be­cause they start­ed to shoot from be­hind me.

“I stayed in that drain un­til I didn’t hear the shots any­more.”

The rel­a­tive said Le­tren was killed in the same house as his 11-month-old son.

She said the fam­i­ly was prepar­ing to cel­e­brate the child’s first birth­day in Sep­tem­ber.

She lament­ed the spate of crime in the com­mu­ni­ty, not­ing that up to yes­ter­day morn­ing, shop­keep­ers and taxi dri­vers were re­luc­tant to ven­ture in­to Scor­pi­on Al­ley.

She said the dif­fi­cul­ty in ac­cess­ing trans­port prompt­ed sev­er­al res­i­dents to walk from their homes in Up­per Abbe Pou­jade Street to the West­ern Main Road where taxis would be avail­able.

“I don’t know how to watch peo­ple again in that com­mu­ni­ty be­cause every­body is say­ing it’s the peo­ple right around re­spon­si­ble.

“No­body want to come up there, no­body work­ing taxi.

“You have to walk down the road to get a car.

“Every­body is in shock.”