An­na-Lisa Paul

Mem­bers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice are cur­rent­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ing two mur­ders that oc­curred on Fri­day.

In the first in­ci­dent, an Ari­ma con­struc­tion work­er was shot dead as he went to pur­chase a soft drink to con­sume with his lunch.

Po­lice said around 1.50 pm, of­fi­cers on mo­bile pa­trol in Pin­to were alert­ed to gun­shots at Pe­ters Av­enue, De­mer­ara Road. They ar­rived at the scene to find Ian “Cobin” Pe­ters, 36, ly­ing on the road in front of a mi­ni-mart.

Wit­ness­es said he had just come out of the par­lour when a black, heav­i­ly-tint­ed ve­hi­cle drove up and the lone oc­cu­pant shot him three times.

A rel­a­tive of Pe­ters rushed out­side and found him strug­gling to breathe and took him to the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where he died just af­ter 2 pm.

In a sep­a­rate in­ci­dent in the dis­trict around 6.30 pm, Kevin Michael Williams, al­so known as Spongey, of Thanno Lane, Ari­ma, was at a garage at Mathu­ra Road, Ari­ma, check­ing on his ve­hi­cle when he saw a gun­man clad in a black hood­ie ap­proach­ing him. He was shot once in the neck by the sus­pect, who es­caped on foot.

Williams was tak­en to the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty where he was treat­ed and ward­ed in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion. He was ex­pect­ed to be trans­ferred to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope for fur­ther treat­ment yes­ter­day.

And in a con­nect­ed in­ci­dent, around 1.40 am yes­ter­day, Mo­hani Ram­per­sad, 47, of Moon­light Cir­cu­lar, De­mer­ara Road, alert­ed fire and po­lice of­fi­cials of a fire at her home. She re­port­ed that a por­tion of the out­er wall to her kitchen area, along with a Nis­san Primera and a white Maz­da three-tonne truck, had been set alight.

Neigh­bours man­aged to keep the fire from spread­ing, us­ing a buck­et brigade. They man­aged to pull out the Nis­san Primera which had been parked un­der the garage but it was com­plete­ly de­stroyed. The truck’s front cab­in was al­so dam­aged.

Of­fi­cers said straight­en­ing and paint­ing work is usu­al­ly done at the garage. The truck was tak­en to the garage lo­cat­ed at Ram­per­sad’s home by Kevin Michael Williams on Fri­day evening. Williams was shot while there.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing in­to all in­ci­dents.

Mean­while, a San­gre Grande man was shot and killed min­utes af­ter he heard gun­shots and peered out his win­dow on Fri­day night.

Po­lice said around 7.45 pm, Vic­tor Fournil­li­er, of Kow­lessor Road, Coalmine, was in his bed­room when he heard gun­shots near­by and walked to his kitchen and pulled back the cur­tain to check out­side.

The 57-year-old’s wife told po­lice she then heard sev­er­al more gun­shots and ran out of the bed­room to find him ly­ing on the kitchen floor, bleed­ing from sev­er­al wounds. He died at the scene.

Fournil­li­er’s death is be­lieved to have been an ac­ci­dent, as of­fi­cers re­port­ed that the fa­tal shoot­ing fol­lowed an at­tempt to kill an­oth­er man.

A 22-year-old man of South­ern Main Road, Cu­napo, who was dri­ving along Kow­lessor Road around 7.30 pm, told po­lice he saw the sus­pect, who is known to him, emerge from the bush­es wear­ing cam­ou­flage gear and hold­ing a shot­gun in his hand.

The sus­pect, who lives at Mandil­lion Road, Coalmine, fired a sin­gle shot at the dri­ver of the van, caus­ing him to run off the road. As the dri­ver came out of the van, the sus­pect con­tin­ued to fire at him, hit­ting him. It was fol­low­ing this in­ci­dent, as the sus­pect walked along Kow­lessor Road, that he fired at the home of Fournil­li­er, killing him.

The dri­ver of the van was treat­ed for mi­nor in­juries and was said to be in a sta­ble con­di­tion yes­ter­day. Of­fi­cers of the East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force lat­er ar­rest­ed the sus­pect, who re­mained in po­lice cus­tody up to yes­ter­day.

In an­oth­er in­ci­dent, a Mor­vant man was shot sev­er­al times while lim­ing on the road near his home on Fri­day night.

Ak­il Dou­glas, 30, of Ce­les­tine Dri­ve, Mor­vant, sus­tained in­juries to both arms and his chest af­ter an un­known gun­man shot him short­ly be­fore the 10 pm cur­few took ef­fect.

Port-of-Spain Task Force of­fi­cers were alert­ed to the in­ci­dent af­ter of­fi­cials at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in­formed them that Dou­glas had been brought in suf­fer­ing with gun­shot wounds.

Dou­glas lat­er told po­lice he was seat­ed near the cor­ner of Ce­les­tine Dri­ve #1 and Pel­i­can Ex­ten­sion in front of a shop, when he saw an un­known ve­hi­cle pull along­side him and a gun­man came out and opened fire on him. Dou­glas was said to be in a sta­ble con­di­tion up to yes­ter­day.

Al­so on Fri­day, of­fi­cers of the Cap­i­tal City Pa­trol Unit and the PoS­DUI were per­form­ing street check ex­er­cis­es in the Cen­tral Po­lice Di­vi­sion when they stopped a black Maz­da dri­ven by a sol­dier—af­ter of­fi­cers ob­served a child un­der five years of age seat­ed in the back with­out a child re­straint or boost­er seat.

Whilst of­fi­cers were hand­ing back the dri­ver’s doc­u­ments to him, he al­leged­ly used ob­scene lan­guage.

As the of­fi­cer cau­tioned the dri­ver about us­ing ob­scene lan­guage, he sped off, drag­ging the of­fi­cer a short dis­tance away as he re­fused to stop. Oth­er of­fi­cers pur­sued the car, which even­tu­al­ly came to stop near George Street due to traf­fic. The dri­ver was sub­se­quent­ly charged for var­i­ous of­fences.