Carisa Lee

Re­porter

Carisa.Lee@cnc3.co.tt

The Pin­to Road, Ari­ma com­mu­ni­ty was thrown in­to shock yes­ter­day, af­ter a group of gun­men stormed a home and shot two peo­ple dead, in­clud­ing a 14-year-old boy.

Po­lice iden­ti­fied the vic­tims as Fa­dius Malchan, 14, and Di­jon Cot­toy, 23.

Malchan’s eight-year-old broth­er was al­so shot in the at­tack. He was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC) in Mount Hope, where he re­mained in sta­ble con­di­tion last evening.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, at around 5.45 am, of­fi­cers re­spond­ed to a shoot­ing in progress on Pin­to Road, where gun­men forced their way in­to the home and opened fire.

When of­fi­cers ar­rived, they found the 14-year-old ly­ing on his back with gun­shot wounds to the left and right tem­ples.

Cot­toy was found dead in a bed with mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds to his body.

Speak­ing about the in­ci­dent yes­ter­day, the teenag­er’s moth­er, Natha­nia Lind­say, who was home at the time of the at­tack, was still try­ing to come to terms with what had hap­pened.

She said Cot­toy was a fam­i­ly friend and made it clear her 14-year-old son was not in­volved in any crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and was adored by many in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“My son wasn’t in noth­ing, he walked to the shop, he will do any­thing for any­body. Every­body know this child girl,” she cried.

Lind­say said she had been sav­ing to buy a bi­cy­cle for her son for Christ­mas Day, but with­out a sta­ble job and due to de­plorable liv­ing con­di­tions, she was un­able to ac­cu­mu­late the funds.

How­ev­er, she said they still had a usu­al Christ­mas evening at home, and her son and the 23-year-old vic­tim had just re­turned from lim­ing when the at­tack oc­curred.

“I done make my ham and thing and my son wait­ing for the ham. He drop asleep hun­gry, wait­ing for the ham,” she ex­plained.

She said all the eight-year-old want­ed was a pack of Skit­tles as his Christ­mas gift, but now all he re­mem­bers is how his broth­er died.

“Be­cause he’s talk­ing, these things are nor­mal...like it’s a nor­mal thing, like you watch a video game,” she said.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Ari­ma Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les for a com­ment on the mur­ders. Beck­les said she knows the fam­i­ly and planned vis­it them lat­er yes­ter­day.

The two killings took the homi­cide toll for the year to 359.

Of­fi­cers from Homi­cide Re­gion II are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.