SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Vi­o­lent clash­es among war­ring crim­i­nal gangs in En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas, have sparked a new wave of fear among res­i­dents, who have im­posed a cur­few on them­selves to safe­guard life and limb.

The on­go­ing gun bat­tle, which has claimed 21 lives in the last year, has left the com­mu­ni­ty paral­ysed in fear and res­i­dents liv­ing like pris­on­ers in their own homes. It has al­so led to res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial prop­er­ties be­ing de­val­ued as peo­ple are mov­ing out while oth­ers are re­fus­ing to come to the area to live.

As the law­less­ness height­ens and the com­mu­ni­ty is now out of con­trol, Imam Taulib Sear­les of the En­ter­prise Com­mu­ni­ty Masjid is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to in­ter­vene im­me­di­ate­ly and take de­ci­sive ac­tion.

Sear­les said the Gov­ern­ment need­ed to ad­dress the so­cial ills af­fect­ing the com­mu­ni­ty and TTPS must think out­side of the box to end the sense­less shoot­ings.

Once a safe and peace­ful com­mu­ni­ty, En­ter­prise be­came a war­zone in 2014 as Ras­ta City and Un­ruly Isis gang mem­bers tus­sled for turf, drugs and guns, leav­ing dead bod­ies in their wake.

The killings height­ened in 2016, when re­put­ed gang leader and crime boss Sel­wyn “Robo­cop” Alex­is was rid­dled with bul­lets at his car wash busi­ness on Free­dom Street. Alex­is’ mur­der trig­gered may­hem and blood­shed be­tween 2016 and 2017 and the surge of law­less­ness left the po­lice busy.

This forced the Gov­ern­ment to es­tab­lish a po­lice post in Li­ons Gate, En­ter­prise in or­der to re­store law and or­der in the crime hotspot.

Res­i­dents, liv­ing in fear, locked them­selves in­doors and were forced to in­stall bur­glar-proof­ing, se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras and get fe­ro­cious guard dogs to keep their fam­i­lies safe.

As the year passed and months fol­lowed, the gun vi­o­lence slowed and res­i­dents in the com­mu­ni­ty breathed a sigh of re­lief once more.

How­ev­er, in the last year, that calm was again in­ter­rupt­ed by the sounds of rapid gun­fire in streets, recre­ation grounds and homes, caus­ing fa­tal­i­ties and forc­ing res­i­dents to im­ple­ment cur­fews to stay safe.

Workmen installing lights at the recreational grounds along Dass Trace, Chaguanas, on Wednesday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

The Sun­day Guardian com­piled its own list of mur­ders from last No­vem­ber to Oc­to­ber of this year which showed that 21 peo­ple died from gun­shot wounds in the com­mu­ni­ty. Thir­teen of those fa­tal shoot­ings oc­curred this year.

The last killing that rocked the coun­try in­volved nine-year-old Jo­mol Mod­este who was shot in his back at the African Recre­ation­al Ground on Oc­to­ber 15, as he tried to es­cape a bar­rage of bul­lets by gun­men in a van.

Ar­eas such as Free­dom Street, En­ter­prise Road, Nim­blette Street, Wal­ter Lane, Chrissie Trace and Rail­way Road are now deemed high risk.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view on Wednes­day, Imam Sear­les said that in the last five years he has of­fi­ci­at­ed at 50 to 60 Janazahs (fu­ner­als) of peo­ple who died at the hands of gun­men in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Sear­les per­formed the fi­nal rites for Alex­is.

The on­ly time crim­i­nals would con­verge in­side a place of wor­ship is at these fu­ner­als, he said.

“They would nev­er come to pray. When it comes to fu­ner­als the whole mosque or church would be crowd­ed. And all they (crim­i­nals) want to do is lis­ten to what the imam, pas­tor or pun­dit has to say.”

Com­mu­ni­ty out of con­trol

Over the years, Sear­les said, all the known gang lead­ers in En­ter­prise met a vi­o­lent death and now reg­u­lar res­i­dents turned crim­i­nals are fight­ing for con­trol of cer­tain ar­eas.

“As far as I am aware, there are no gang lead­ers in En­ter­prise. The po­lice can’t tell you who are the known gang lead­ers...they don’t know. That means that the whole com­mu­ni­ty now is out of con­trol be­cause every­body wants to be a leader. Every­body de­cides what they want at their own time...some­times the com­mu­ni­ty lives in fear.”

Com­par­ing the En­ter­prise com­mu­ni­ty now to what ex­ist­ed 20 years ago, Sear­les said peo­ple were no longer com­fort­able be­ing in the pub­lic do­main.

“When 6 0’clock comes, peo­ple have to find their hole. They need to go where it is safe. Peo­ple are liv­ing like pris­on­ers in their homes.”

In the un­der­world, the re­li­gious leader said, there are no rules, stat­ing that if some­one did an in­jus­tice, the on­ly re­dress was re­venge.

“This is what is caus­ing all the crime and killings.”

The up­surge in killings has caused Sear­les’ con­gre­ga­tion to drop from 400 to a mere 75 mem­bers.

“When we have Eid prayers peo­ple in En­ter­prise pre­fer to go out­side be­cause they feel threat­ened or un­safe. We are los­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to teach ethics and moral val­ues to the younger gen­er­a­tion. We are fight­ing a com­mu­ni­ty with oth­ers who want them to smoke mar­i­jua­na, do crime and show them what a firearm looks like. So we will be los­ing the war. A whole gen­er­a­tion is be­ing lost.”

While some res­i­dents have grown numb to the blood­shed, the val­ue of com­mer­cial and res­i­den­tial prop­er­ties has al­so plum­met­ed, he point­ed out.

Sear­les sug­gest­ed the po­lice avoid us­ing marked po­lice ve­hi­cles when pa­trolling the com­mu­ni­ty.

“The worst thing they (po­lice) can do is vis­i­ble pa­trols...the ban­dits see­ing when they com­ing and leav­ing.”

Imam Taulib Searles

Guns ram­pant on the streets

The po­lice have been iden­ti­fy­ing coun­tries where the guns are com­ing from and their val­ue, Sear­les said.

“They al­ways claim they find­ing firearms but they could nev­er find the con­signee. You on­ly whis­per you want a firearm and peo­ple will find you. And they will give you op­tions.”

He said the suc­cess of fight­ing crime was not based on how much the Gov­ern­ment spends but on its re­sults.

“It is not good enough that you could talk about how much you spend and you can­not show re­turns on your in­vest­ments.”

He ap­pealed to the Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide so­cial ser­vices to peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“The Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment has no so­cial in­ter­ests in cer­tain ar­eas. They don’t know how many peo­ple are un­em­ployed, who are sin­gle par­ents and in­di­vid­u­als who live in pover­ty. Who is do­ing re­search on this?

“The lead­ers who are en­trust­ed with look­ing over our af­fairs have not seen it fit to pro­vide coun­sel­lors to help fam­i­lies in grief. We need sup­port groups. All the par­ents who lost their lit­tle chil­dren and all the chil­dren who lost their par­ents could talk to some­body. We are bank­rupt of ideas.”

He said fam­i­lies un­able to cope would seek re­venge for the death of their loved ones.

Asked if he ever re­quest­ed a meet­ing with the war­ring fac­tions, Sear­les said he was told that his job was not to make peace but bury the dead.

A fight for sur­vival

At Git­ten Street, one res­i­dent who with­held his iden­ti­ty said the young peo­ple in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties in En­ter­prise were iden­ti­fied by num­bers.

“You know them by the num­bers, 6, 7 and 9 and so on. The war in here dif­fer­ent to the war in Laven­tille, Mor­vant or Ari­ma. Them fel­las doh re­al­ly fight for turf. They does fight for sur­vival.”

The crim­i­nals who have formed them­selves in­to groups, he said, al­so use the acronym AB­GI mean­ing “Any­Body Gets It,” when they car­ry out their work.

In En­ter­prise, it is very easy to ac­cess a gun.

“You can get it at black mar­ket prices. The guns range from $14,000 to $40,000. You can get a high-pow­ered ri­fle for $40,000.”

The crimes, he claimed, were be­ing per­pe­trat­ed by lack of em­ploy­ment.

“Peo­ple from out­side...most­ly Mus­lims get­ting con­tracts to build this and that and we so have noth­ing to get. And they want to come in here and tell we how to run things. That go lead to war.”  

Asked if job op­por­tu­ni­ties will help re­duce gun vi­o­lence and killings, he replied “Miss, the way I see it, a promise is a com­fort to a fool. We have been fooled so many times by past and present gov­ern­ments we don’t want any­thing from them.”

An unidentified man looks on as a police vehicle is seen patrolling along Enterprise Street, Chaguanas, on Tuesday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Res­i­dents trau­ma­tised

‘Cross­ing bound­aries will lead to bul­lets’

Bha­ga­loo Street res­i­dent Rol­ston De Coteau de­scribed En­ter­prise as a for­got­ten com­mu­ni­ty, stat­ing for decades the Dass Trace Recre­ation­al Ground lacked ba­sic ameni­ties.

“We have to beg to get the grass on the field cut. Af­ter decades they now in­stalling lights. When it rains the field like a swim­ming pool,” De Coteau point­ed out.

“Peo­ple from here don’t go African Grounds to take a sweat and peo­ple from African Grounds don’t come up here. There are cer­tain bound­aries we don’t cross be­cause we know bul­lets will fly and blood will flow. That is how En­ter­prise peo­ple live.”

‘It was once a pride and joy to live here’

At Mc Carthy Street, an el­der­ly fe­male sit­ting be­hind thick bur­glar proof­ing in her ve­ran­dah said she felt like sell­ing her home and mov­ing to safer ground. “En­ter­prise was once a pride and joy to live in. Now it’s just so ter­ri­ble. It’s a war­zone. From the minute it starts to get dark, I would lock up and stay in­side. It’s not the life I want to live but I have to put my safe­ty first.”

‘I mak­ing jail in­side my house’

Maris­sa (not her re­al name), 67, broke down in tears in front of a su­per­mar­ket on En­ter­prise Street as she re­lat­ed how her broth­er and son were killed in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents in the com­mu­ni­ty.

In 2004, Maris­sa said her broth­er who lived in New York came to Trinidad to at­tend their fa­ther’s fu­ner­al and went to buy a milk drink when gun­men came to rob a su­per­mar­ket and shot and killed him.

While he lay bleed­ing on the ground, the thieves stole her broth­er’s jew­ellery and mon­ey.

Last De­cem­ber, her 31-year-old son, Kevin Adams, who she de­scribed as a peace­mak­er was al­so fa­tal­ly shot.

Maris­sa said her son went to talk to a group of peo­ple who were tak­ing ad­van­tage of a men­tal­ly un­sta­ble boy. Af­ter quelling the in­ci­dent, Adams went to a shop to buy some items and walked out with­out col­lect­ing his change. As he at­tempt­ed to re-en­ter the shop, gun­men opened fire on him.

Maris­sa’s two oth­ers sons al­so be­came tar­gets and had to seek asy­lum abroad.

She point­ed to mul­ti­ple bul­let holes in the front glass, ceil­ing and walls of a su­per­mar­ket that gun­men shot at.

“En­ter­prise Street come like the Long­denville Ceme­tery. Please, tell me if En­ter­prise is any place to live. All yuh tell me. It is the worst I have seen in all the years I liv­ing here.”

Maris­sa said her years of grief and pain have left her men­tal­ly bro­ken and liv­ing in fear.

“I try not to ven­ture out­side. I mak­ing jail in­side my house.”

Asked if  she was fear­ful for her life, Maris­sa said, “I just want to sell my prop­er­ty in En­ter­prise and  go the US, Cana­da or Eng­land to live.”

Maris­sa said the gun­men had a habit of pulling the trig­ger for “rank and fame” and to show their en­e­mies they had big­ger guns.

Jomol Modeste

‘Jo­mol did not de­serve to die the way he did’

A stone’s throw from where Maris­sa lives, Ger­maine Mod­este, who lost her nine-year-old grand­son in a hail of gun­fire last month, said asks God to cov­er her with the blood of Je­sus every day.

“En­ter­prise is a ter­ri­ble place. Peo­ple are giv­ing the area a bad name.”

She feels the es­tab­lish­ment of a po­lice post in the area would bring some mea­sure of com­fort and ease to law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

Mod­este said she would leave her grand­son’s killer/killers in God’s hands.

“There is noth­ing I can do to bring Jo­mol back. He didn’t de­serve to die the way he did. If the fam­i­ly doesn’t get jus­tice from the law we will get it from God.”

Vandana Mohit

MP Mo­hit: We want a high­er po­lice pres­ence

Ch­agua­nas East MP Van­dana Mo­hit said while she was aware of cer­tain ac­tiv­i­ties tak­ing place in En­ter­prise, she had been en­gag­ing the youth in pos­i­tive ac­tiv­i­ties.

“This news that came to us with Jo­mol was very shock­ing. I am aware of a few ac­tiv­i­ties which have been tak­ing place in the vicin­i­ty of the African Ground.”

Two days af­ter Mod­este’s killing, Mo­hit said she wrote Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds urg­ing him to con­vert part of the En­ter­prise Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, a stone’s throw away from the African Ground, in­to a po­lice post for the safe­ty of her con­stituents.

Mo­hit said she has re­ceived no feed­back from Hinds.

In 2017, then na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lion, promised to con­struct a po­lice sta­tion in En­ter­prise which Mo­hit said was not de­liv­ered.

She al­so made a plea for a high­er po­lice pres­ence in the com­mu­ni­ty.

2022 mur­der vic­tims

Oc­to­ber

*Jo­mol Mod­este

*Mar­ius Gue­var­ra

*Tevin Nep­tune

Sep­tem­ber

*Dil­lon Lewis

*Jonathan Ramirez

June

*Dave Ju­nior Nes­bitt

*Dwayne Robin­son

May

*Avinash Seep­er­sad- AKA Ab­dul Wa­keel and Kr­y­sis

April

*Akeen James

*Kevon Paul Joseph

March

*De­von Da­da Gray

*Kevin Mo­hammed

Feb­ru­ary

*An­to­nio Tong Chin

2021 mur­der vic­tims

 Feb­ru­ary

*Ja­son Rosey

Ju­ly

*Col­in Alex­is

Au­gust

*An­tho­ny St Louis AKA Ba­goo

Sep­tem­ber

*Suren­dra Neil Ra­goo­bar

*Arkille Ab­solum

*Kel­ly Mal­ook

No­vem­ber

*Akeen Ja­mal Alexan­der

De­cem­ber

*Kevin Adams