Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

One res­i­dent is count­ing his lucky stars that he is alive, while two oth­ers - a fa­ther and son - re­mained hos­pi­talised last evening fol­low­ing a shoot­ing in­ci­dent in South Oropouche on Tues­day.

“Thanks to God,” de­clared 58-year-old Reynold Buxo, as he re­count­ed his close en­counter with death.

Buxo just hap­pened to be pass­ing by, on his way home, when gun­men were shoot­ing at Gary Ju­goon, 38, and his son Romel, 19.

Ini­tial po­lice re­ports stat­ed that around 8.25 pm, Ju­goon, a fa­ther of four, and his son were stand­ing in a shed in front of Ju­goon’s home at Leza­ma Trace, St John’s Vil­lage, when one of the gun­men called out to Romel.

Romel and his fa­ther ran but the sus­pects went in pur­suit, fir­ing sev­er­al shots at them. Both fa­ther and son col­lapsed a short dis­tance away. Ju­goon was shot in his chest while his son suf­fered in­juries to his back and but­tocks. Rel­a­tives took the in­jured men to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Po­lice re­trieved three spent 9 mm shells at the scene. When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the area yes­ter­day, none of their rel­a­tives were at home and res­i­dents were too afraid to speak on cam­era.

How­ev­er, re­call­ing his or­deal, Reynold Buxo, 58, said one of the sus­pects had fired at him too but missed. Buxo said he had just col­lect­ed a par­cel of meat at his friend’s home when he heard the gun­shots. He saw sev­er­al men run­ning to­wards him.

“As I come out of the gate and stand up on the side of the road, the man pass on the side of me...pow (at) my face. Splin­ters fly all in my face. It is a good thing God is liv­ing. He saved me from that shot,” Buxo said.

Ju­goon’s cousin, Anesh Ram­rat­tan, who lived next door, was mur­dered in St Mary’s Vil­lage, South Oropouche, last month. Ram­rat­tan was the fourth per­son from South Oropouche to be mur­dered in the past two months. Po­lice be­lieve the mur­ders are linked to il­le­gal drugs.

Mean­while, an­oth­er res­i­dent who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said res­i­dents are now liv­ing in fear. She said af­ter Romel was shot he was beg­ging for help, but res­i­dents were too scared to ven­ture out of their homes.

“You know in these kinds of things you can’t help no­body. You try to help and you get kill your­self,” she said.

Res­i­dents called for fre­quent pa­trols in the area, but said they were not sure whether they could trust the po­lice. “Some­times, you don’t know who work­ing with who or who is con­nect­ed to who,” an­oth­er res­i­dent said.

Up to last evening, no one was ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the shoot­ing in­ci­dent.