Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

The mur­der of an off-du­ty po­lice­man out­side a pop­u­lar Ari­ma gro­cery on Sat­ur­day night has stoked fears among res­i­dents over con­tin­ued crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty.

Po­lice said PC Shel­don Pe­ter­son, 54, was sit­ting out­side the Awe­some Food and Drinks su­per­mar­ket at the cor­ner of Olton Road and the East­ern Main Road at around 7.30 pm when a beige Nis­san Almera drove on­to the carpark.

Two gun­men got out of the car and ap­proached Pe­ter­son, who be­gan to strug­gle with one of the at­tack­ers. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said Pe­ter­son fired a shot from his li­cenced pis­tol be­fore be­ing shot sev­er­al times as the gun­men grabbed his gun and got back in their car and sped off.

Two by­standers, ages 40 and 62, were shot by stray bul­lets dur­ing the fra­cas. Of­fi­cers of the Ari­ma CID and the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU) vis­it­ed the scene with a dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer who de­clared Pe­ter­son dead.

Po­lice found six spent 9 mm shells at the scene.

Fol­low­ing the shoot­ing that night, sev­er­al res­i­dents from near­by Thoma­sos Ter­race and Sher­wood Dri­ve ven­tured out­side their homes to see the com­mo­tion as in­ves­ti­ga­tors processed the scene and col­lect­ed ev­i­dence.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the neigh­bour­hood yes­ter­day morn­ing and spoke with one res­i­dent who came to the as­sis­tance of one of the wound­ed men in the af­ter­math of the shoot­ing.

The man who is a life­long res­i­dent of Thoma­sos Ter­race lives with­in walk­ing dis­tance of the gro­cery where Pe­ter­son worked and re­called hear­ing the sound of gun­shots. The res­i­dent said he ran to the gro­cery and was shak­en by the sight of the dam­age left be­hind by the ban­dits who fled min­utes ear­li­er.

“By the time I got in front the gate, I saw him (Pe­ter­son) gasp­ing out. When we got in­to the store, we saw a trail of blood and then a cus­tomer on the floor; he got shot in his an­kle. I took a belt and tied it around the leg to make sure he didn’t lose more blood. Every­one was just in a fren­zy.”

He not­ed that while the fear among his neigh­bours was clear, the fre­quen­cy of mur­ders left him de­sen­si­tised to vi­o­lence.

The res­i­dent said Pe­ter­son earned pop­u­lar­i­ty as a friend­ly face and would of­ten give spare change to cus­tomers who did not have enough mon­ey to buy their items.

Re­call­ing an in­ci­dent where he caught a school­boy shoplift­ing choco­lates at the gro­cery, the man said Pe­ter­son sim­ply took the sweets and let him go with a warn­ing. “He had a heart. He wasn’t like some se­cu­ri­ty guards who op­er­at­ed like ro­bots and took or­ders with­out ques­tion. I could say he treat­ed us in the neigh­bour­hood re­al­ly good, and we lost a re­al­ly good friend to the com­mu­ni­ty.” While in the neigh­bour­hood on Sun­day, homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors were seen en­ter­ing the busi­ness­place with the as­sis­tance of an em­ploy­ee as they con­tin­ued in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to Pe­ter­son’s mur­der.

Guardian Me­dia spoke to the pres­i­dent of the TTPS So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA), act­ing ASP Gideon Dick­son, who con­demned Pe­ter­son’s mur­der and de­scribed his ac­tions as “hero­ic”. Dick­son said the as­so­ci­a­tion, to­geth­er with Crime Stop­pers, would be is­su­ing a re­ward for any­one with in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to the ar­rest of Pe­ter­son’s killers.

Three more killings

Mean­while, a 29-year-old man was gunned down while lim­ing in San Juan. Po­lice said Ker­ron Ap­ple­white was lim­ing near Con­tain­er Plaza, on Sad­dle Road, at around 9.35 pm on Sat­ur­day when a white Hon­da Civic drove near him. A gun­man got out of the car and shot at Ap­ple­white sev­er­al times but missed him. Ap­ple­white was chased and shot sev­er­al times by his at­tack­er.

Passers-by took Ap­ple­white to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, where he was de­clared dead at 9.48 pm.

In an un­re­lat­ed in­ci­dent, a 21-year-old man, Nicholai Jack, was gunned down while lim­ing with a group of peo­ple in an open yard at Cleaver Heights, Ari­ma, around 10 pm on Sat­ur­day.

By­standers said a gun­man got out of a car and shot at the peo­ple gath­ered. Jack was hit sev­er­al times in the mid­sec­tion.

Passers-by took Jack to the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal, where he was de­clared dead at 10.15 pm.

The bul­let-rid­dled body of an uniden­ti­fied man was found in Tu­na­puna ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing. Po­lice said they re­ceived a re­port of a shoot­ing at Achong Trace at 2.49 am and went to the scene where they found the body of a man. The body had mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds to the head and chest, with sev­er­al spent shells near­by.

Of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion II are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to all three in­ci­dents.