Senior Reporter
shane.superville@guardian.co.tt
Murders in and around Guanapo in Arima, all within walking distance of each other, have left the community paralysed with fear. Heavily armed gunmen are reportedly using the forested areas around the community to hide, track, and ambush their victims.
In July, five people were killed and a four-year-old boy wounded after shootings in Guanapo. Even as official TTPS data show a significant drop in the number of murders in the Northern Division for 2024, residents of that area experience a different reality where simply walking outside their homes is a risk as anyone–criminal or not—is a target.
“Nobody not safe, because it’s everyone they’re killing, whether man, woman, or children,” one resident identified only as Rita told Guardian Media last week. The woman who described herself as a lifelong Guanapo resident said the uptick in violence was a relatively recent phenomenon that began in September 2023 with the murder of siblings Faith, Arianna, Shain and Tiffany Peterkin at their La Retreat home.
Two men, Jalani Rivers, 22 and Jodel Noel, 24, were charged with the murders in October. However, their arrests did not quell the bloodshed, which resumed in July this year.
“It’s something that can happen either night or day,” Rita said.
“Guanapo wasn’t always like this; it used to be a really nice place to live, but different groups started to come together and exclude others, which led to this gunplay.”
Arima is part of the TTPS Northern Division, which has typically been a high-crime area owing to the large population density and closeness to the North-Central and Central divisions, where police believe criminals can slip across boundaries to escape.
The division’s crime problems were also acknowledged by former head Snr Supt Christopher Paponette during a town hall meeting in 2022, when he admitted that the area accounted for the highest portion of serious reported crimes (SRCs) over the last five years.
The division, which extends from Maloney in the west to Cumuto in the East, consists of a mix of urbanised areas mixed with large portions of farmland and dense forest at the foot of the Northern Range. Responding to questions at a Joint Select Committee (JSC) in March, Northern Division head, Snr Supt Miguel Montrichard reported that there were six gangs in the division with 139 members.
Responding to Guardian Media’s questions via WhatsApp on Thursday, the TTPS Corporate Communications Unit said there were four known gangs in the area.
Of these four, police in the Gang Intelligence Unit (GIU) said at least three gangs are operational in Guanapo: the Seven gang, the Resistance and a small clique of Muslim gangsters.
The officer stated that due to the proximity of these groups, conflict was unavoidable.
Data from the TTPS Commissioner’s Compstat (Comparative Statistics) meeting showed that the rate of murders in the Northern Division has slowed for the year thus far. Between January 1 and August 5 this year, there were only 37 murders for the Northern Division, three of which were detected, compared to 53 murders for the same period in 2023, where eight were detected and people charged.
According to the data, the Port-of-Spain, Eastern, and Tobago divisions had the highest increases in murders for the year thus far, with the Southern Division also showing a small increase of five per cent.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the murder toll was 366, compared to 345 for the same period last year.
Cops challenged as killers use forested terrain to hide out
Guanapo is located three kilometres to the east of Arima’s commercial district and is connected by a winding network of roads extending through sprawling farmland and steep, hilly forests further north.
These paved roads branch off into narrower roads and dirt tracks, creating a maze of paths. Some of these paths don’t even have official names or appear on Google Maps. This layout, residents said, gives gunmen an advantage as they can ambush their victims before escaping into the surrounding densely forested area as easily as they appeared, making the attacks fast and unpredictable.
Guardian Media visited several areas in Guanapo, including La Retreat Road, Dump Road, and several smaller roads that the gunmen reportedly use.
One of the streets branching off of the Heights of Guanapo Road opposite the Guanapo landfill is Cemetery Street, which leads to different tracks that can be used to access any point to the east or west of the community. On July 15, 57-year-old Anthony John was gunned down just before 6 am near his La Retreat, Guanapo home, by gunmen who waited in nearby bushes. Rita, the Guanapo resident, said the gangs’ strategy to use the forest as cover has rendered conventional police patrols ineffective.
She said while police patrols have been more routine since the Peterkin murders in 2023, the officers seldom left their vehicles as they drove through the area.
“Those criminals aren’t dumb; what they’ve been doing is cutting their own paths behind the (Guanapo) landfill and moving through those areas with their guns.
“We used to walk through the back as a shortcut to get to a friend or family member or even just to get to the (Arima) bypass, but we don’t anymore because you don’t know who or what you could bounce up.
“The police do their drive-through on the hill here; they turn, and then they go their way. They don’t park up and stay for two hours.” In their WhatsApp response, the TTPS Corporate Communications spokesperson admitted that patrolling such areas was difficult.
“There are the inherent challenges when policing this type of terrain, however, we are utilising all available resources and collaborating with other units and branches to get the job done.”
Speaking with Guardian Media at his Tumpuna Road office on Wednesday, Deputy Arima Mayor and Tumpuna councillor Jovan Roberts admitted that resourceful criminals used the forested areas to their advantage. “La Retreat Road is a unique environment in that it is forested, so persons can make their own tracks; they can make their own retreat routes, and it would be difficult for them to be detected. It’s almost a cat-and-mouse game (with the police).
“It’s terrifying when you hear from some of the La Retreat residents what is going on, but I know the police are responding even with the difficulties they have up there with the terrain.”
However, the TTPS spokesperson said challenges to securing Guanapo extend beyond effective patrols, citing a “disconnect” between the community and the police.
The spokesperson did not go into further details on what this communication gap was caused by but said the TTPS was working towards fostering better relations with residents. In addition to the safety concerns at Guanapo/La Retreat, Roberts said the issue of criminals also affected the Tumpuna community.
“On an almost nightly basis, one or two persons would have attempted home invasions. But the persons who are responsible for the home invasions may be very familiar with the area because they were very difficult to detect.”
Roberts said closer consultation with the district police and a strengthened neighbourhood watch system led to the incidents coming to an end. But even with this achievement, gang warfare continued to emerge in other parts of Arima.
Samaroo Village residents living in fear
Dustan Bascombe has spent his entire life in Samaroo Village, Arima. The 76-year-old has seen first-hand the changes in his community, from the development of technology to paved roads, but admits the latest series of murders has left him saddened and fearful for the future.
Bascombe’s youngest son, 21-year-old Emerson Boucher, together with his friend Michael De Gazon, 27, were gunned down during a drive-by shooting outside his Edma Street, Samaroo Village home on Monday night. Fears of violent retaliation after the beating of a young woman by members of a gang in the community circulated for some time.
A video of the beating was circulated on WhatsApp, where one of the men was heard questioning the woman over whether she was a Muslim and what she was doing in Samaroo Village.
Bascombe said while it was likely his son and his friends heard of the rumours of an impending attack from members of a rival gang, they were not fearful as they knew they were not involved in anything illegal and felt they would be spared. They were wrong.
“People in the area said they saw the car the gunmen were travelling in drive straight past them (Boucher and De Gazon) at first. Those (criminals) were not after my son and his friends; they were looking for someone else, and they couldn’t find them. Instead, they just settled for who they could see, and that just happened to be my son.”
Recalling the events of that night, Bascombe said his son cooked a meal and shared it with friends as they sat near a silver car outside their home and limed.
He said his son briefly went inside the house to help him use his cellphone but returned outside again to lime with his friends when the shooting began. Bascombe said the unpredictable nature of killings, where innocent people were targeted simply because of which neighbourhood they were from, highlighted the dangers they faced.
“I could have been out there too, just passing or liming with them, and just like that, I could have been one of the victims. I don’t know what they (criminals) getting out of this.
“How do they feel when they kill a man and sleep and get up on a morning? How do they live after that?”
One of Bascombe’s neighbours, James Singh recalled hearing the sound of gunfire on Monday night and originally thought it was someone trying to break down his front door. He said he felt the violence was far from over, as other attacks were possible until the intended targets were found.
“They (gangsters) came back, and whoever they catch on the corner, they just lick up.
“I know those guys (Boucher and De Gazon) since they were little fellas and they were just sitting down relaxing.
“It will have follow-up on this because they will want to get at that person.”
Roberts said the recent spate of violence in Arima has been a major concern to him, but maintained that the borough was safe. He noted that as the borough of Arima celebrates its 136th anniversary, the murders, while troubling, should not be allowed to shadow the community’s legacy and history.
Arima murders between July and August
• Emerson Boucher, 21 and Michael De Gazon, 27, were gunned down in Samaroo Village, Arima on August 5.
• Jamiela Cumberbatch, 26, was shot and killed at her La Retreat Road, home on July 28. Cumberbatch was the niece of Eyon Murray who was murdered days earlier.
• On July 24, 58-year-old Eyon Murray was shot and killed near the Guanapo landfill on Dump Road.
• On July 18, the body of Brandon Bruce, 21, was found in the Heights of Aripo. Bruce’s body had several bullet holes.
• Anthony John, 57, was about to walk into his La Retreat Road home on July 15, when two gunmen shot him several times before escaping through nearby bushes.
• On July 13, Dwayne Richardson, 34 and his common-law-wife Latoya Voisin, 31, were at their Mauturita home, when gunmen stormed the house shooting them. Their four-year-old son was also shot in the attack.