Sascha Wil­son

Rel­a­tives of busi­ness­man Shamzard Mo­hammed who shot his wife to death and then killed him­self, are not on­ly in pain over los­ing him but his wife, Keisha-Ma­ri­na Bostic, as well.

"Keisha did not de­serve that kind of thing. I feel for Keisha more than any­body else," lament­ed Mo­hammed's aunt San­dra Mo­hammed at her Bar­rack­pore home yes­ter­day.

Forty-one-year-old Mo­hammed, al­so known as "Rock­ey", left his Bar­rack­pore home on Fri­day morn­ing and wait­ed for Bostic, a teacher and lawyer, out­side her moth­er's home at Dray­ton Street, San Fer­nan­do, armed with his two li­cenced firearms.

When she opened the front gate to leave for work, he fired sev­er­al shots, hit­ting her at least eight times in her head, face and ab­domen. He then shot him­self in the head.

As she wiped away tears, Mo­hammed (San­dra)said they were still try­ing to wrap their minds around what hap­pened as he was not a vi­o­lent per­son.

 "Rock­ey was a re­al nice guy, re­al good boy," said Mo­hammed who had con­sid­ered him as a son.

She ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, that al­though she lives near Mo­hammed and his 87-year-old moth­er, she was not aware that Bostic had left him and re­turned to her moth­er's home about three months ago.

The cou­ple got mar­ried in Jan­u­ary. But she said about two weeks ago, he told her hus­band that Bostic was sick and went to her moth­er's home. She said Bostic had a good re­la­tion­ship with her. "She was very pleas­ant to us, very friend­ly girl, and I am sor­ry that this had to hap­pen like this, and we still love her," she sobbed.

Sandra Mohammed, aunt of Shamzard Mohammed weeps while speaking about her nephew.

RISHI RAGOONATH

Say­ing the com­mu­ni­ty where he lived was al­so in shock, she added that Mo­hammed was ac­tive­ly in­volved in com­mu­ni­ty work and events, help­ful and gen­er­ous. "I don't know what it is went wrong be­tween Keisha and Rock­ey. I can't say be­cause we were not there."

As for him ex­pe­ri­enc­ing fi­nan­cial woes, Mo­hammed (San­dra) said she was not aware of that, and he showed no signs of be­ing un­hinged. "The on­ly thing, he nev­er used to grow hair on his face and I telling dad­dy (San­dra's hus­band), Rock­ey not trim­ming and shav­ing, but he is pass­ing here, he giv­ing right," she added. As some­one mar­ried for 45 years, Mo­hammed ad­vised cou­ples that vi­o­lence must nev­er be the an­swer to do­mes­tic con­flict. "There is pas­tor, preach­er, imam, any­body, and old­er peo­ple who have ex­pe­ri­ence, con­sult with them and have a lil chat and walk out. This is not the last re­sort, this is not the end," she urged. Peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty al­so said that Mo­hammed, who owned a bak­ery and stock pile, was a "cool guy," pleas­ant, and help­ful. They said his ac­tions left them shocked and con­fused. Bostic was a for­mer sec­re­tary at the San Fer­nan­do West Con­stituen­cy and her moth­er, Mar­va, is a long-stand­ing PNM ac­tivist. Bostic's broth­er was shot dead in a mosque in San Fer­nan­do in 2015.

Ja­cob: He was the hold­er of five li­cenced firearms

Mean­while, Ag Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob has con­firmed that Mo­hammed was the hold­er of five li­cenced firearms–a ri­fle shot­gun, a pump ac­tion shot­gun, and three pis­tols.

Mo­hammed was is­sued with his first Firearm Users Li­cense (FUL) for a Glock pis­tol in Sep­tem­ber 2019, he got FULs for a ri­fle and pis­tol in Ju­ly 2020, fol­lowed by a pump ac­tion shot­gun in No­vem­ber 2020, and then in Ju­ly 2021 he got a li­cence for a pis­tol.

He said Bostic's mur­der was the fourth in­ci­dent from the lat­ter part of last year to now in which a li­cenced firearm was used to com­mit mur­ders.

 "There­fore the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, we are look­ing at gen­er­al­ly to tight­en up on the whole as­pect, num­ber one on the is­suance of firearms, yes you may on­ly need one firearm to com­mit an act, but where we have in­stances where per­sons have five, ten, 17, 23, 27 firearms that prac­tice needs to stop. Ba­si­cal­ly, un­der my watch, it has ceased be­cause we can­not have this pro­lif­er­a­tion of firearms ei­ther in the le­gal or il­le­gal way tak­ing place in Trinidad and To­ba­go."

He ad­vised that un­der the Po­lice Ser­vice Stand­ing Or­ders and Firearm Act, if a re­port is made to the po­lice of a FUL hold­er com­mit­ting any form of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, that could lead to the im­me­di­ate sus­pen­sion of the li­cence, and if the hold­er is charged they could be sus­pend­ed from ob­tain­ing a li­cence for five years.

How­ev­er, he said the law is silent on how many FUL one in­di­vid­ual could ob­tain. "We have in­stances where some in­di­vid­u­als have more firearms than what you will find in a po­lice sta­tion. This is def­i­nite­ly a se­cu­ri­ty risk for our na­tion with the amount of firearms that were giv­en to per­sons and that need to be ad­dressed. The Min­istry and the AG Of­fice are work­ing on that be­cause the law is ab­sent (on that). Some­one could ap­ply for a vari­a­tion when they get a FUL, and they can get an­oth­er firearm."

The com­mis­sion­er said he has a team of of­fi­cers in place vis­it­ing firearms deal­ers and FUL hold­ers to en­sure that "every­thing is in or­der and all of this be­cause of the num­ber of le­gal firearms brought in­to our coun­try with­in the last three years."

In terms of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, he said their records show that there has been a "bit of de­crease," es­pe­cial­ly do­mes­tic vi­o­lence mur­ders, with­in the last year.

Mean­while, for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith said the num­ber of FULs a per­son has does not in­ten­si­fy some­one's ac­tions to­wards com­mit­ting a crime. He said, "The num­ber of firearms is to­tal­ly ir­rel­e­vant, this is a red-her­ring be­ing used by a cer­tain po­lit­i­cal par­ty in a des­per­ate at­tempt to try to un­der­mine what I had achieved. The im­por­tant thing that I did when firearms were ob­tained by per­sons was I had a strin­gent process in place to en­sure that the per­son is of sound, body and mind whether they had one or five or a hun­dred.

  "The facts will show in my three years as com­mis­sion­er of po­lice there was nev­er one in­ci­dent of a (li­cenced) firearm be­ing lost, be­ing stolen, be­ing used to com­mit a crime or be­ing used to com­mit a mur­der be­cause I had strin­gent mech­a­nisms in place to pre­vent those things."