An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The usu­al hus­tle and bus­tle con­tin­ued as nor­mal along Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, hours af­ter a shoot­ing on Sat­ur­day night that claimed the life of a for­mer na­tion­al foot­baller and left two oth­ers in­jured.

Po­lice said Tekay Hoyce, 27, of Richard­son Lane, Laven­tille, was pur­sued and shot mul­ti­ple times by two gun­men around 6.25 pm on Sat­ur­day.

The for­mer Un­der-17 foot­baller died on the pave­ment, crouched in a cor­ner against the stat­ue of a Chi­nese drag­on. Hoyce was shot in the left shoul­der, up­per chest, and head. The gun­men then turned their weapons on passers-by, cre­at­ing a di­ver­sion to es­cape in a wait­ing ve­hi­cle.

The shoot­ing sent shop­pers, ven­dors and vis­i­tors flee­ing for their lives.

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials rushed to the scene af­ter get­ting the re­port, even as some mem­bers of the pub­lic jos­tled one an­oth­er to take pic­tures of the dead man so they could post them on so­cial me­dia.

The en­su­ing chaos was lat­er up­loaded on­line by sev­er­al peo­ple, which is how many of Hoyce’s rel­a­tives and friends were alert­ed to his mur­der.

A 20-year-old man of Arou­ca, who was walk­ing past, was al­so shot in the right foot, while a 67-year-old fe­male street ven­dor was shot in the right fin­ger. The in­jured man was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal by a mem­ber of the pub­lic, where he was treat­ed and dis­charged, while the woman ini­tial­ly re­fused med­ical at­ten­tion. She re­port­ed­ly told of­fi­cers she would not leave the area un­til her goods had been packed up, and pro­ceed­ed to ban­dage the su­per­fi­cial wound.

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials yes­ter­day de­scribed the shoot­ing as “a crime of op­por­tu­ni­ty” but were un­will­ing to say much more. They not­ed, though, that Hoyce was well known to the po­lice.

Guardian Me­dia was, how­ev­er, told the po­lice are brac­ing for more in­ci­dents as they ex­pect reprisals.

Hoyce was the son of Brent “Big Brent” Miller, who was charged with the 2003 mur­der of Jil­lia Bowen and the at­tempt­ed mur­der of ex­pelled Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen mem­bers Sal­im “Small Slim” Rasheed and Adel Ghany, and six oth­er re­lat­ed charges.

The con­spir­a­cy, it is al­leged, oc­curred on June 4, 2003, when Bakr and oth­er per­sons con­spired at Cit­rine Av­enue, Di­a­mond Vale, Diego Mar­tin, to mur­der Rasheed and Aubaidah.

Rasheed, Adel Ghani and Bowen were shot at as they sat on a bench at the Movi­eTowne cine­plex at In­vaders Bay in Mu­cu­rapo, short­ly af­ter 11.30 pm that same night.

The charges against Miller were lat­er dropped af­ter he agreed to tes­ti­fy against the now de­ceased Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr.

TTFA mourns death of for­mer play­er

In a re­lease post­ed to Face­book yes­ter­day, the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) con­firmed Hoyce was part of the na­tion­al team dur­ing the 2015 Con­ca­caf Un­der-17 World Cup qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign. He was al­so part of the squad that com­pet­ed in the 2014 Caribbean Un­der-17 Fi­nal Round of World Cup qual­i­fiers.

The TTFA said, “The foot­ball com­mu­ni­ty ac­knowl­edges Hoyce’s con­tri­bu­tion at the youth in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el and ex­tends con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly, friends, and for­mer team­mates dur­ing this time.”

Ven­dors ad­mit be­ing fright­ened

“Fright­ened.”

This was how at least three road­side ven­dors in the cap­i­tal yes­ter­day de­scribed their re­ac­tion to the brazen shoot­ing in the heart of the cap­i­tal.

While the two men and one woman re­fused to pro­vide their names for fear their lives would be in dan­ger, they agreed no one de­served to die in that man­ner.

One man said, “They kill he like a dog. No­body doh de­serve that! Yuh wouldn’t know that was a hu­man.”

A fruit ven­dor who sells close to where the shoot­ing oc­curred said he was shocked when the gun­shots rang out and he be­gan “scram­bling.”

He said, “I doubt­ed it was re­al­ly that at first but is when I see peo­ple start to run, dat is when I re­alise what go­ing on. I come to see what hap­pen and see the man ly­ing down dey...dead.”

Be­liev­ing Sat­ur­day’s shoot­ing was an iso­lat­ed in­ci­dent, he added, “I think per­son­al­ly, that most of them things is peo­ple who know who they com­ing for, so me ain’t re­al­ly con­cerned bout dat. I doh have dat kin­da beef with no­body.”

How­ev­er, he ac­knowl­edge the risks for in­no­cent peo­ple go­ing about their busi­ness.

“Yuh had­da come out here and get it at the same time.”

A fe­male ven­dor said, “I leave every­thing and run in the casi­no.”

Asked how she was feel­ing yes­ter­day, the woman said de­spite be­ing fright­ened, she had been left with no choice but to come back out to earn a liv­ing sell­ing on the pave­ment.

“Every­body was fright­ened. My fear is that it could hap­pen again.”

She called for more po­lice pa­trols in the cap­i­tal, and she urged peo­ple, “When yuh come in Port-of-Spain to do your busi­ness, do what you come to do and leave. Yuh nev­er know when some­thing could hap­pen. Don’t linger...do what you had­da do and get out.”

An­oth­er road­side ven­dor, who saw Hoyce be­ing shot, said he trau­ma­tised by what he wit­nessed.

“The fear I have out here is that the gun­men could come and try be­hind me or some­body else...I dun­no.”

He said the in­ci­dent had left him shak­en.

“That same per­son leave An­ton’s af­ter buy­ing a ring and a chain for his girl­friend ear­li­er. He went up­stairs in the mall to buy some­thing for him­self and while he sit down lim­ing and drink­ing ... no­body couldn’t say noth­ing or raise an alarm. Gun­man just walk up and as he raise, they let go on him.”

He urged the pub­lic, “Watch how yuh walk­ing on Char­lotte Street. Just be safe...yuh dun­no what could hap­pen. In the blink of an eye, some­body could get stab up or shoot.”