Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Busi­ness­woman Nicole Moses died pro­tect­ing her fam­i­ly dur­ing a home in­va­sion in West­moor­ings on Thurs­day. Two ban­dits who in­vad­ed her home and were in­volved in her fa­tal shoot­ing were al­so killed.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Moses, 49, was at home with her el­der­ly moth­er and oth­er rel­a­tives just af­ter 8 am, when three men en­tered the fam­i­ly’s prop­er­ty at Cher­ry Cres­cent.

A re­port said a rel­a­tive, who is the hold­er of a firearm user’s li­cence, opened fire on the ban­dits with his weapon, af­ter which there was a shootout.

Two of the ban­dits were shot. They died on the scene.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Moses was scam­per­ing oth­er rel­a­tives to safe­ty when she was shot.

Ini­tial po­lice re­ports had said that Moses had killed the sus­pects.

She was wound­ed in the neck and chest. She was lat­er tak­en to the St James Med­ical Fa­cil­i­ty where she died.

The two sus­pects have been iden­ti­fied as Joshua Hay­wood, 21, of Mor­vant, who po­lice said had eight pend­ing cas­es be­fore the courts for rob­bery and lar­ce­ny.

His ac­com­plice, Joshua Black­man, 24, of Er­i­ca Street, Laven­tille, had 13 pend­ing cas­es for pos­ses­sion of arms and am­mu­ni­tion, rob­beries and lar­ce­ny. One gun was re­cov­ered from the two men.

CSI officers conduct investigations into the home invasion at Cherry Crescent, Westmorrnings, yesterday.

NICOLE DRAYTON

Moses had been in the fab­ric busi­ness for over 30 years with a store in down­town Port-of- Spain named Classy Fab­rics.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at the scene, Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chant As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) pres­i­dent Gre­go­ry Aboud said, “We have seen an in­crease in in­va­sion-type crimes in Port-of-Spain busi­ness­es with the re­cent in­ci­dent on Char­lotte Street. The crime sit­u­a­tion in this coun­try is spin­ning out of con­trol and we sent out an alert about day­time crimes and we said to our mem­ber­ship that there is a bold­face na­ture of day­time events, this is an in­di­ca­tion that there is a ram­page on.”

Aboud said he would be very ashamed if he was part of the State ap­pa­ra­tus right now be­cause what hap­pened was a clear in­di­ca­tion there was a lack of re­spect for the State.

Aboud warned, “The cit­i­zens of this coun­try should be on full alert dur­ing day­time hours against per­pe­tra­tors of crimes, against per­sons wear­ing hood­ies and hats, per­sons wear­ing ski masks. The sit­u­a­tion at this time is very se­ri­ous with re­spect to the dan­gers or­di­nary per­sons are fac­ing, whether they are dri­ving to their cars go­ing to pick up laun­dry or buy­ing some­thing down the street or in their homes.

“The cit­i­zens of this coun­try are at greater risk dur­ing day­light hours at this time in our na­tion’s his­to­ry than any oth­er time and I make no bones about say­ing it and I am will­ing and able to de­fend my com­ments for any­one who wants to ex­am­ine the da­ta to see the state of grave dan­ger we are liv­ing in.”

Residents sit outside the home of Nicole Moses who was fatally shot by bandits at her house on Cherry Crescent, Westmoornings, yesterday.

NICOLE DRAYTON

Po­lice are said to be re­view­ing CCTV footage of the in­ci­dent as they con­tin­ue in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Just ear­li­er this week, Re­li­able Parts and Ser­vices at Bound­ary Road, San Juan, was stormed by a group of ban­dits who beat and robbed staff on the com­pound as they al­so robbed busi­ness­es.

In that in­ci­dent, one ban­dit was killed by po­lice who re­spond­ed.

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