Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

While he un­der­stood the de­mands and risks of hav­ing his son join the Po­lice Ser­vice, Bob­by Har­ri­nar­ine says he did not ex­pect him to meet his demise so soon.

Har­ri­nar­ine’s son, Ravin­dra Har­ri­nar­ine, a con­sta­ble, was gunned down out­side a friend’s home at Bassie Street, Spring Vil­lage, Val­sayn, on Wednes­day night.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors say Har­ri­nar­ine, 30, who was as­signed to the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch of the Prime Min­is­ter’s es­cort, was speak­ing with a woman when a car drove up to them.

Three masked gun­men got out of the car and con­front­ed Har­ri­nar­ine. The woman ran away. She re­turned short­ly af­ter to see Har­ri­nar­ine bleed­ing from gun­shot wounds.

He died at the scene.

Po­lice said Har­ri­nar­ine’s li­censed pis­tol was miss­ing.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors found 15 spent 9 mm shells at the scene.

Speak­ing briefly with Guardian Me­dia at the fam­i­ly’s San­ta Cruz home on Thurs­day, the el­der Har­ri­nar­ine said his son al­ways want­ed to be a po­lice of­fi­cer. He not­ed that crime had be­come so preva­lent, it was dif­fi­cult to say what could be done to quell the vi­o­lence.

“It doesn’t make sense talk­ing about crime be­cause it seems as though no­body can do any­thing about it or they don’t want to do any­thing about it. I can’t say give every­body a gun be­cause it would be worse. I don’t know what to say.”

Har­ri­nar­ine said his son joined the TTPS in 2012 and was pas­sion­ate about his job. He added that he found out about the mur­der when his wife re­ceived a call from a rel­a­tive who saw it be­ing re­port­ed on a pop­u­lar talk show.

The el­der Har­ri­nar­ine said his last in­ter­ac­tion with his son was when he left for work on Wednes­day and promised to re­turn home on Thurs­day.

One res­i­dent re­called the sound of gun­fire, but was too afraid to look out­side as he thought of busi­ness­woman Lana Sa­hadeo, who was killed by a stray bul­let in the neigh­bour­hood in De­cem­ber, as gun­men chased af­ter their tar­gets from an at­tack that start­ed on the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way. Al­so killed in that at­tack were cousins Damien Criss, Levi Criss and Jer­ry Hollingsworth, who were part of an en­tourage for Trini­bad artiste Kashif “K Man Sixx” Sankar.

The res­i­dent said,“I just went to take a show­er. I heard ex­plo­sions but I didn’t come out­side at all be­cause I knew it was gun­shots. I said ‘No way I am not com­ing out.’”

The man said res­i­dents were still un­easy af­ter Sa­hadeo’s mur­der, not­ing the lat­est killing on­ly height­ened fears.

“This area is very bad. Every week you have a shoot­ing in the vil­lage. It’s very bad,” he added.

An­oth­er res­i­dent said Har­ri­nar­ine’s mur­der was a dis­turb­ing re­minder of how any­one, in­clud­ing po­lice, could be vic­tims of crime.

On the wall of a prop­er­ty at the bot­tom of Bassie Street, the num­ber ‘6’ was spray-paint­ed, pos­si­bly to sig­nal the ter­ri­to­ry of the Sixx gang.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, North-Cen­tral Di­vi­sion head, Se­nior Supt Richard Smith, said there were in­creased pa­trols and vis­i­bil­i­ty in the area in the af­ter­math of the quadru­ple mur­der last month. He said he al­so saw the graf­fi­ti and as­sured the po­lice were fol­low­ing up on this.

“I had my Gang Unit pay­ing par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion to that area, I even saw the Sixx sign there, which sug­gests there might be some mem­bers of the Sixx gang in­side there. I beefed up pa­trols and as­signed two mo­tor­cy­cle po­lice of­fi­cers to the area,” he said.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, in a me­dia re­lease, of­fered con­do­lences to Har­ri­nar­ine’s fam­i­ly and col­leagues. She not­ed that while a clear mo­tive had not been es­tab­lished, there was no in­for­ma­tion to sug­gest he was tar­get­ed be­cause he was a po­lice­man and as­sured homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors were work­ing to find those re­spon­si­ble. She said the se­ri­ous­ness of re­cent mur­ders and pub­lic out­cry in re­sponse were not lost on her, as analy­ses showed the mur­ders were gang or drug re­lat­ed. She said the po­lice have been fo­cus­ing gangs but need the pub­lic’s sup­port.

“We have been ac­tive­ly tar­get­ing gang lead­ers and their mem­bers frontal­ly, and I give the as­sur­ance that we will con­tin­ue to do so un­til we achieve an end to these sense­less killings,” she said.

Dur­ing yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann’s, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley of­fered con­do­lences to Har­ri­nar­ine’s fam­i­ly, say­ing he knew him from his se­cu­ri­ty unit.

Row­ley said amidst crime chal­lenges, the risks of law en­force­ment in tack­ling crim­i­nals should not be over­looked. He al­so lament­ed the vi­o­lence of crim­i­nals and ques­tioned the type of homes that bred such peo­ple.

“He went to Spring Vil­lage for some rea­son and was wan­ton­ly killed be­cause in our so­ci­ety, there are peo­ple for whom that is a job. They call it ‘put dong a wuk’ ... I can­not stop ask­ing where did these peo­ple come from? They didn’t just sud­den­ly ar­rive - born and nur­tured here; ex­cept for the few South Amer­i­cans who might come in now and then, these are home­grown peo­ple and that says a lot about a lot of homes in this coun­try,” Row­ley said.