Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter-In­ves­tiga­tive

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

The still­ness of the Bon Air night was shat­tered on No­vem­ber 14 when ri­fle-bear­ing gun­men opened fire at Sky­lark Cres­cent, killing two teenagers.

Their crime, deemed pun­ish­able by death, was hav­ing the au­dac­i­ty to stand near the neigh­bour­hood par­lour.

The deaths of 15-year-old An­im Per­sad of Emer­ald Cir­cu­lar, Bon Air Gar­dens, and Ol­un Jones, 18, of Co­corite Dri­ve, Bon Air, rocked the com­mu­ni­ty, which has had to bat­tle gang vi­o­lence for years.

The killing of the two teens was par­tic­u­lar­ly dread­ful, res­i­dents told Guardian Me­dia since the teens were “in­no­cent chil­dren”.

Jones was an as­pir­ing Trini­bad artiste. Trini­bad is the newest style of mu­sic orig­i­nat­ing in T&T with a lo­cal twist to Ja­maican dance­hall, which peo­ple be­lieve is part­ly re­spon­si­ble for some el­e­ments of the crime wave in the coun­try.

Mean­while, Per­sad was a young foot­baller known in the com­mu­ni­ty for his skills on the field.

But nei­ther Jones nor Per­sad were the gun­men’s tar­gets, po­lice said.

Po­lice re­port­ed that of­fi­cers of the Arou­ca CID were on pa­trol in Bon Air around 10 pm when they heard gun­shots com­ing from near the cor­ner of Sky­lark Cres­cent and Emer­ald Cir­cu­lar.

They found Per­sad’s body on the ground af­ter the killer sprayed 57 bul­lets in the di­rec­tion of the build­ing he was stand­ing next to.

Short­ly af­ter, the of­fi­cers found Jones faint­ly call­ing for help.

Hopes of his sur­vival were dashed when about 30 min­utes af­ter the shoot­ing and him be­ing rushed to the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal, he was de­clared dead.

Po­lice said they re­cov­ered 32 spent 5.56mm shells and 25 spent 7.62mm shells at the scene.

‘Tak­ing pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures’

Guardian Me­dia re­turned to Bon Air last week and spoke with some peo­ple will­ing to air their views.

A snack de­liv­ery crew said each time they en­tered the com­mu­ni­ty they felt un­easy.  

“Is no stick­ing when we in here. I mean we are not in noth­ing but is the in­no­cent get­ting take these rounds,” said one of the load­ers, while his col­league said they were not afraid but just “ex­treme­ly cau­tious”, a proac­tive mea­sure they did not take any­where else.  

Both men were wait­ing on the dri­ver, who they said was tak­ing in­ex­plic­a­bly long, adding to their dis­com­fort.  

From Jan­u­ary 2019 to No­vem­ber 20, less than a week af­ter the dou­ble mur­der, there have been 17 mur­ders in the com­mu­ni­ty. Po­lice sta­tis­tics showed at least three a year, ex­cept last year when there were no mur­ders in the area.  

In the five years, on­ly one per­son was charged with mur­der.

Po­lice said 13 guns were found and seized dur­ing that time.  

Po­lice da­ta showed there were 30 shoot­ing in­ci­dents, with on­ly one ar­rest while 17 peo­ple were charged for 20 record­ed in­ci­dents of pos­ses­sion of arms and am­mu­ni­tion.  

An 83-year-old for­mer pan man who did not want to be named ad­mit­ted to do­ing “some things that could get him ar­rest­ed”, but that was in the past. He said “that old man” was dead and buried nev­er to be res­ur­rect­ed.  

“You know what the prob­lem is, many of these youths don’t see them­selves liv­ing be­yond 40. I liv­ing here 43 years now and this com­mu­ni­ty has been de­te­ri­o­rat­ing for the past 20 years.”

The prob­lem, he said, stemmed from those who moved in and brought their old bad habits with them. He re­it­er­at­ed that when he moved from San Juan to Bon Air, his old ways of in­cor­po­rat­ing vi­o­lence and play­ing pan, some­thing syn­ony­mous at the time, he stopped.

Oth­ers, he said, did not do what he did and brought their bad be­hav­iour with them and passed it on to their chil­dren, cre­at­ing the crim­i­nal chaos that claimed 17 lives in the past five years at least.  

Like oth­er ar­eas in the coun­try, Bon Air is not out of the reach of gangs with dif­fer­ent fac­tions co­hab­i­tat­ing un­til a fight for turf erupts and dis­rupts the seren­i­ty. The killing of the two youths is be­ing blamed on gang war over drug turf.  

Gangs have been a thorn in Bon Air’s side for years, reach­ing gov­ern­ment lev­el with the State hav­ing to fork out mil­lions ex­tra for the con­struc­tion of a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre.  

The Bon Air Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre was sup­posed to have been com­plet­ed for $10.4 mil­lion. Gang vi­o­lence over the con­tract in­flat­ed the cost to $19 mil­lion.

The fight for the con­tract forced the ini­tial con­trac­tor to forego the con­tract and saw six peo­ple be­ing mur­dered.  

The first con­tract was award­ed to Zion Con­struc­tion Ltd in 2010. The con­tract was aban­doned af­ter sev­er­al threats were made by crim­i­nals de­mand­ing em­ploy­ment or mon­ey to al­low the work to con­tin­ue.

The sec­ond con­trac­tor, Sphinx Ltd, was hired in 2017 to com­plete the project to be com­plet­ed in 2018. Sphinx Ltd had work­ers shot at while work was on­go­ing and po­lice had to be paid ex­tra-du­ty fees to be on the job site 24 hours un­til its com­ple­tion in 2020.

‘Com­mu­ni­ty needs to­geth­er­ness’

Proud Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ac­tivist Pa­tri­cia “Pat­sy” Hug­gins, whose par­lour “It’s all Love Mi­ni Mart” was shot up when the killers came look­ing for their tar­get, said the prob­lem with Bon Air was a lack of to­geth­er­ness.  

Hug­gins, 70, said she has been liv­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty for around 30 years and the co­he­sive­ness that once ex­ist­ed is no more.

Asked what caused the lack of to­geth­er­ness that al­lowed gangs to fes­ter in the com­mu­ni­ty, Hug­gins said, “In Bon Air, I will tell you the truth. The peo­ple are not to­geth­er. In here have a big di­vi­sion.”

As she sat on her loveseat in­side her mi­ni mart, her grand­son of­floaded in­gre­di­ents for the evening’s din­ner of corn soup. Hug­gins said the bul­let holes in the walls of her mi­ni mart are not a re­flec­tion of a love lost in and for her com­mu­ni­ty, de­spite the di­vi­sive­ness.

While there is some di­vi­sion, over­all, she said there is a love in the area, a love her fam­i­ly ex­tend­ed to Jones who, up to the time of his death, was liv­ing with her.  

“That boy was like a ten year old to me. Once he knows I don’t like some­thing, he was not do­ing it. Just last night (Mon­day) I was think­ing about him and I start­ed to cry be­cause as you know both his moth­er and fa­ther died, and he was telling me how I re­mind­ed him of his moth­er and that boy cry like a ba­by. That re­al­ly hurt me.”

She ad­mit­ted that af­ter the dou­ble mur­der, she felt like flee­ing.  

The re­tired pan­man said di­vi­sive­ness ex­ists be­cause the old­er gen­er­a­tion was not fos­ter­ing that con­nec­tion and pass­ing it on. He said the prob­lems fac­ing Bon Air to­day are be­cause of in­ac­tions or ac­tions of yes­ter­year.  

Res­i­dents who did not want to be iden­ti­fied said they some­times do not feel safe in their own com­mu­ni­ty. They said more needs to be done to steer the youth away from crime.

Guardian Me­dia al­so spoke with Bon Air res­i­dent and coun­cil­lor for the Bon Air/Arou­ca/Cane Farm Maria Bap­tiste, who said the feel­ing of un­ease was a nor­mal re­sponse to vi­o­lent out­bursts in the com­mu­ni­ty. She said per­son­al­ly she does not share that view but un­der­stood why res­i­dents would.  

“It is nor­mal for peo­ple to feel a bit pan­icked but what we have done, be­sides li­ais­ing with the po­lice, we are in talks with Dr Joanne Spence to pro­vide group ther­a­py ses­sions to per­sons in the area.”

She said that there was al­so con­tin­ued on­go­ing coun­selling avail­able through MP Camille Robin­son Reg­is.

‘Sports can change things’

As Guardian Me­dia drove through the streets of Bon Air Gar­dens, those hur­ried­ly try­ing to es­cape the driz­zle suc­cinct­ly summed up the ways to bring about the much-need­ed to­geth­er­ness–sports.  

Dur­ing the vis­it, there was no ac­tiv­i­ty at the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, but res­i­dents said there are usu­al­ly cours­es made avail­able in the evenings. While we were leav­ing, two schools were get­ting ready for a foot­ball match at the recre­ation­al grounds.  

Bol­ster­ing the point that sports is the glue that can bind the com­mu­ni­ty was the youth of­fi­cer for the Bon Air Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil Shiv­ohn Nor­ie­ga who said he warned that a lack of sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties can lead to an up­surge in vi­o­lence.  

“I know once it have foot­ball, the gun­men not go­ing to shoot up the place be­cause their lit­tle nephew or niece might be there. When you don’t have sports ... the youths like foot­ball, when you don’t have that the youth will find oth­er things to do. Every hour on the field is an hour away from the gangs.”

A pas­sion­ate Nor­ie­ga said he wants to host more sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties but with lim­it­ed fund­ing, he is un­able to. He is call­ing on the Tu­na­puna Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and oth­ers in au­thor­i­ty to put their mon­ey where their mouths are and help save the Bon Air youths from crime.  

“We have to do some­thing for the com­mu­ni­ty. If we have to start from scratch let we start from scratch, from the youths go up. Let we guide them and save them from peer pres­sure.”

He said for some time the great­est con­cern in Bon Air, apart from wa­ter is­sues and the need for em­ploy­ment, was a men­tal­ly ill man on the fringes of the com­mu­ni­ty. Now crime and vi­o­lence have re­turned.