The rel­a­tives of mur­dered Venezue­lan bar­ber Irvin Joaquin May­o­ra, have rub­bished claims that he was killed when he tried to rob a man who was in St James on Car­ni­val Tues­day. In­stead, they said May­o­ra and the man who killed him knew each oth­er.

Po­lice said May­o­ra, 30, was lim­ing with oth­ers near a bar on the cor­ner of West­ern Main Road and Vi­dale Street, around 5.15 pm when he was shot sev­er­al times in his head.

Two men, ages 25 and 66 and two women, ages 29 and 65 were al­so in­jured.

They re­mained at the hos­pi­tal up to yes­ter­day evening in sta­ble con­di­tion.

Po­lice were called in and ar­rest­ed the sus­pect near the scene and seized a Glock 43-X pis­tol.

West­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice said from “all ac­counts” back­ground checks showed the sus­pect was not a Firearms User’s Li­cense (FUL) hold­er. Po­lice found 11 spent 9 mm shells at the scene.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day, one of May­o­ra’s rel­a­tives said he was em­ployed as a bar­ber. She said he was with his wife at the time of the shoot­ing.

The rel­a­tive, who spoke through an on­line trans­lat­ing app and did not wish to be named, ac­cused the sus­pect of giv­ing the po­lice a false sto­ry in an at­tempt to avoid charges.

She added that the sus­pect al­so knew May­o­ra’s wife.

“How can you try and rob some­one in the mid­dle of a crowd of peo­ple and with no weapon to use?

“The sto­ry cir­cu­lat­ing is ab­surd be­cause the one claim­ing to be the vic­tim is the one who was caught with the gun by the po­lice.

“He (the killer) leaves three chil­dren or­phaned be­cause of his ac­tions.”

She said May­o­ra lived in Trinidad for the past six years while his three chil­dren re­mained in Venezuela.

She de­scribed May­o­ra as a “good son and a good fa­ther” who pri­ori­tised the well-be­ing of his chil­dren, ages four, sev­en and ten, by com­ing to Trinidad to work and send mon­ey.

She said May­o­ra’s body would be tak­en back to Venezuela for bur­ial.

A lo­cal man, who is a fam­i­ly friend, ac­com­pa­nied May­o­ra’s rel­a­tives to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, said he was al­so deeply sad­dened by the mur­der.

“I know he’s a de­cent fel­la and this has re­al­ly hurt the fam­i­ly. I just hope that he (sus­pect) faces the con­se­quences be­cause peo­ple can’t be so reck­less.

The man said he met the fam­i­ly dur­ing the reg­is­tra­tion of Venezue­lan mi­grants in T&T in 2020 and re­mained in con­tact.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land said while he was pleased with the swift re­sponse from po­lice in ar­rest­ing the sus­pect, he too was sad­dened by May­o­ra’s death.

“It is a des­per­ate­ly un­for­tu­nate sit­u­a­tion. I want to send my con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of the per­son who lost their life, we com­mis­er­ate with them and the po­lice are on (it).”

Po­lice from the Re­gion I Homi­cide Bu­reau are con­tin­u­ing their in­quiries in­to May­o­ra’s mur­der.

This is the sec­ond in­ci­dent in re­cent times that Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions around the cap­i­tal city have been marred by vi­o­lence. On Car­ni­val Sat­ur­day morn­ing in 2023, At­i­ba Ro­driguez, 37 and a man iden­ti­fied as “Jessie or Javon” were killed while lim­ing on Ari­api­ta Av­enue.

A British woman, who was vis­it­ing T&T at the time, was al­so shot in her leg.