Shas­tri Boodan

A fa­ther and son were gunned down and a third rel­a­tive crit­i­cal­ly wound­ed in Cunu­pia ear­ly Tues­day morn­ing, in an am­bush that last­ed just 16 sec­onds.

An­tho­ny Joseph, 43, and his son Vikie, 20, were shot dead near the cor­ner of Mon Plaisir Road and Riv­er Road around 6:13 a.m. as they left home with 17-year-old Ri­car­do Joseph to pick co­conuts. Sur­veil­lance footage shows two masked gun­men ex­it­ing a grey Nis­san Wingroad, fir­ing at the fam­i­ly’s pick-up, and ap­pear­ing to tam­per with some­thing be­neath it be­fore flee­ing.

Ri­car­do was rushed to the Ch­agua­nas Health Cen­tre and lat­er trans­ferred to Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in crit­i­cal con­di­tion.

The fam­i­ly had been re­peat­ed­ly dis­placed by gang vi­o­lence, mov­ing from St Au­gus­tine af­ter their home was burned down in 2023. An­tho­ny’s daugh­ter, Es­ha Joseph, said the fam­i­ly had re­ceived threats and that the Cunu­pia house they were rent­ing had been shot at ear­li­er this month. Last De­cem­ber, Vikie was al­so shot in the leg.

“We’ve been run­ning for our lives for two years,” she said. “If we stayed, my broth­ers would have been dead.”

Lo­cal MP Dr Rishard Seecha­ran con­demned the at­tack and urged Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin to in­crease pa­trols, in­stall more CCTV, and pre­vent reprisals. Po­lice are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.