The Pin­to Road com­mu­ni­ty is fast be­com­ing one of the hottest spots in the coun­try for killings.

There is an emerg­ing trend of young men fre­quent­ly be­ing gunned down in the area, and the rapid sound of gun­shots echo­ing through the com­mu­ni­ty has be­come com­mon­place as the stakes are high for gang mem­bers grap­pling for turf–ei­ther for drugs or guns–in the east­ern bor­ough.

Ac­cord­ing to se­nior po­lice in the area, the killings are be­ing fu­elled by a "dead­ly" com­bi­na­tion of drugs, firearms, re­venge, re­tal­i­a­tion, and ri­val­ry.

Res­i­dents were gripped by fear af­ter the brazen mur­ders of two men in the Ari­ma com­mu­ni­ty last week. When Ak­il Dou­glas, 22 and 19-year-old Ri­co Kallicha­ran were gunned down days apart last week it rocked the com­mu­ni­ty cre­at­ing an un­easy feel­ing among res­i­dents. They are now brac­ing for reprisals.

Both men were ap­proached by gun­men who opened fire on them in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents. On June 12, Dou­glas was lim­ing on the Train Line when two gun­men opened fire on him. Dou­glas at­tempt­ed to run but picked up sev­er­al bul­lets and lat­er died.

Kallicha­ran of Right­eous Lane Ex­ten­sion was stand­ing on the road­way in front of his home three days lat­er when two gun­men walked up to him and shot him. The men ran through a track that con­nects Right­eous Lane Ex­ten­tion and Mot­t­ley Trace along Pin­to Road and es­caped.

In Jan­u­ary, Kay­lon May­ers, 24, of Ben­ny Trace, Va­len­cia, was con­duct­ing me­chan­i­cal re­pairs on a Toy­ota Corol­la ve­hi­cle which was parked in the dri­ve­way of his friend's home at Pun­nette Av­enue, in Pin­to, when two masked gun­men came from be­hind a house and shot him mul­ti­ple times.

The killings have brought the mur­der count to three in the last six months, com­pared to the four killings for the whole of last year.

An­ton "Bu­ju" Joseph and Gabriel "Bot­toms" Mitchell were vic­tims in last year's killing spree when they were gunned down in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents on the Train Line and Right­eous Lane re­spec­tive­ly.

Last Ju­ly, it was re­port­ed by Guardian Me­dia that eight peo­ple were killed in a mat­ter of hours in what po­lice de­scribed as a re­venge killing in the af­ter­math of the mur­der of Ka­reem Wal­ters al­so known as "Pin­to Boss" and "Crime Boss" of Pin­to Road. Wal­ters was shot mul­ti­ple times about his body which was found down a precipice just off the To­co Main Road.

In 2020, there were sev­en fa­tal shoot­ings in the area.

A for­mer Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) coun­cil­lor who lived in the area has ex­pressed alarm over the ex­plo­sion of vi­o­lence.

Peo­ple in the area have grown ac­cus­tomed to gun­men strik­ing bold and leav­ing bod­ies on the road­ways, in drains or even on some­one's doorstep, as Pin­to now has the un­en­vi­able record as Ari­ma's fastest-grow­ing killing zone.

Streets such as Right­eous Lane, Pun­nett Av­enue and the Train Line have be­come crime hot spots for gang mem­bers and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

Pin­to Road snakes through the en­vi­rons of Ari­ma for ap­prox­i­mate­ly two kilo­me­tres and is sit­u­at­ed a stone's throw away from the com­mu­ni­ty of Ma­tu­ri­ta, it­self a well-known zone for killings and shoot­ings.

Po­lice chal­lenged by the lev­el of vi­o­lence in the Pin­to com­mu­ni­ty have vowed not to give up and put new mea­sures in place to fight the scourge. The po­lice have stepped up pa­trols in the area and can be found stop­ping and search­ing ve­hi­cles at any giv­en time while oc­cu­pants get rubbed down.

Mean­while, the Ari­ma Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice (AMP) will now join forces to play an in­te­gral role in the fight against the crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

Police officers on patrol stop and search the occupants of a Nissan AD wagon along Pinto Road, Arima.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Ari­ma the most dan­ger­ous place in Trinidad

In May of this year, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) da­ta rat­ed Ari­ma as the most dan­ger­ous place in Trinidad with the most mur­ders, sex­u­al of­fences, rob­beries and break-ins for the pe­ri­od No­vem­ber 2021 to April 2022. Based on sta­tis­tics ob­served from the da­ta of the TTPS Ari­ma has ac­count­ed for the high­est per­cent­age of mur­ders in the coun­try for the last five years. The area has al­so record­ed the high­est num­ber of se­ri­ous re­port­ed crimes in Trinidad and To­ba­go over that du­ra­tion. Since the be­gin­ning of this year, Ari­ma has seen a spike in killings and shoot­ings es­pe­cial­ly in the Pin­to Road area ac­cord­ing to the sta­tis­tics.

Sta­tis­tics by the TTPS showed that ap­prox­i­mate­ly one in every 11 mur­ders, sex­u­al of­fences, break-ins or rob­beries com­mit­ted since No­vem­ber 2021 took place in Ari­ma–with this area ac­count­ing for 233 cas­es of the 2503 cas­es re­port­ed na­tion­wide.

So preva­lent were crimes in this area that the North­ern Di­vi­sion was split in­to two ge­o­graph­i­cal di­vi­sions so po­lice could bet­ter tack­le the scourge. In May this year, the di­vi­sion was di­vid­ed in­to the North­ern Di­vi­sion Cen­tral and North­ern Di­vi­sion North.

Res­i­dents falling vic­tim to killings out­side their dis­trict

Apart from the mur­ders in the Pin­to area, the for­mer coun­cil­lor, speak­ing on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said that res­i­dents have al­so fall­en vic­tim to the killings out­side of their dis­trict.

She drew ref­er­ence to scrap iron deal­er An­drew "Mon­go" Corbin of Pin­to Road, who was mur­dered at the Heights of Gua­napo on June 18.

Corbin went to drop med­i­cine for his ail­ing two-month-old grand­daugh­ter who was stay­ing at a rel­a­tive's home when two gun­men wear­ing ski masks or­dered him to put down the ba­by and then shot him.

A rel­a­tive had claimed in a news­pa­per re­port some time ago that Corbin had been threat­ened by crim­i­nals in the Heights of Gua­napo to stay away from the area.

Dane St Rose, 23, was an­oth­er Pin­to Road res­i­dent whose life was snuffed out on June 13 by po­lice out­side the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T cam­pus on Wright­son Road.

St Rose was ac­cused of rob­bing and kid­nap­ping a 39-year-old PH taxi dri­ver near Skally­wag Bay in Ch­aguara­mas.

When po­lice in­ter­cept­ed the ve­hi­cle on Wright­son Road, of­fi­cers said St Rose crashed the ve­hi­cle and then shot at them as he tried to es­cape. He died in the cross­fire.

Even some peo­ple who have vis­it­ed the area have fall­en prey to gun­men.

Princes Town me­chan­ic Kishoan Ram­lo­gan and a col­league were am­bushed when they went to buy a car on Right­eous Lane that was ad­ver­tised on Face­book in Oc­to­ber 2021. When Ram­lo­gan and his col­league got to the area a group of armed men shot them mul­ti­ple times.

Ram­lo­gan was robbed of $15,000 while he took his last breath, while his col­league had to be treat­ed for a bul­let wound to one of his el­bows.

A police officer searches a car along Pinto Road, Arima.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Sen Supt: Res­i­dents har­bour­ing crim­i­nals and con­ceal­ing guns

Head of the North­ern Po­lice Di­vi­sion, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Christo­pher Pa­ponette con­firmed that "gang vi­o­lence has re­mained one of the ma­jor is­sues" in Pin­to.

He said dur­ing the lock­down the TTPS no­ticed a drop in gang vi­o­lence and homi­cides. But now, as the coun­try is re­turn­ing to nor­mal­cy, Pa­ponette said, some of the gang mem­bers have re­newed their ri­val­ry.

"It is a com­bi­na­tion of is­sues...it's a com­bi­na­tion of re­venge, re­tal­i­a­tions, drugs, firearms and ri­val­ry," Pa­ponette said.

The drugs pro­vide a fi­nan­cial base for the gangs and the il­le­gal firearms pro­tect the drugs, turf and gang mem­bers from their ri­vals.

"The firearms are used as tools for re­tal­i­a­tion," he added.

He de­scribed the crime as a re­oc­cur­ring dec­i­mal.

In North­ern Di­vi­sion, Pa­ponette said, over 50 il­le­gal firearms were re­cov­ered for the year.

"And some of it would be in the gen­er­al Pin­to area."

Pa­ponette said sev­er­al crim­i­nals in this area car­ry high-pow­ered guns.

"So high-pow­ered weapons in the hands of reck­less per­sons is dan­ger­ous be­cause their in­tent is to kill, wound or cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm to a per­son/s. But they are not con­cerned with the col­lat­er­al dam­age."

In Pin­to, he said, there are a lot of es­cape routes which the killers use to their ad­van­tage, not­ing that while of­fi­cers are of­ten on foot and ve­hi­cle pa­trols they can­not be wide­spread. Some in­di­vid­u­als har­bour crim­i­nals and con­ceal their firearms as well.

"This cre­ates a chal­lenge for the po­lice. But we are not giv­ing up. While the homi­cides have been tak­ing place we have put things in place to min­imise or re­duce the op­por­tu­ni­ty for these things."

A bullet hole left behind by the killers.

Abraham-Diaz

A killing field

Even though there was a high po­lice pres­ence when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Pin­to Road last Wednes­day, res­i­dents in the com­mu­ni­ty feared the area had be­come what they de­scribed as "a killing field" by gang mem­bers cre­at­ing may­hem and hav­oc.

Wor­ry and stress etched on her face, the for­mer coun­cil­lor ad­mit­ted that the spate of mur­ders had been too much for the com­mu­ni­ty to stom­ach.

"It has been hap­pen­ing far too of­ten and is too many peo­ple that I know get­ting killed. Al­most every day you would hear rapid gun­fire. It's an un­easy feel­ing be­cause you don't know if you, a fam­i­ly mem­ber or neigh­bour could in­no­cent­ly pick up a stray bul­let," she said.

The shoot­ings were ev­i­dent as walls, steel gates and homes bore bul­let holes.

She said while crime has been af­fect­ing the en­tire coun­try, the gangs and on­go­ing il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties have been giv­ing the com­mu­ni­ty a bad name.

"Is who ain't dead in Pin­to get­ting shoot. And who ain't get­ting shoot hid­ing from the po­lice. And, who ain't hid­ing from the po­lice have guns. It's sad know­ing what this place was, to what it has be­come."

One Train­line res­i­dent, who pre­ferred not to be named be­cause of the sen­si­tive sub­ject, said they live by one rule "you see, hear and speak no evil in Pin­to oth­er­wise you will be next."

An­oth­er res­i­dent said talk has been cir­cu­lat­ing that Kallicha­ran and Dou­glas were two of six peo­ple marked for death in Pin­to.

"So we ex­pect more reprisal killings," she said. "Even if I know what these two fel­las get killed for I not talk­ing. "

Sen Supt Pa­ponette told Guardian Me­dia that he was un­aware of any ex­ist­ing hit list for the area.

Bullet holes left behind remind relatives, residents, and passers-by of a young man killed one week ago at Righteous Lane, Pinto Road, Arima.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Ari­ma May­or: Mu­nic­i­pal po­lice will play in­te­gral role in crime fight

Mean­while, Ari­ma May­or Cagney Casimire said the bor­ough was aware of the preva­lence of gang ac­tiv­i­ty in Ari­ma.

Hav­ing held re­cent dis­cus­sions with act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob about the es­ca­lat­ing crime in the bor­ough, Casimire said the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice will now play an in­te­gral role in the fight against the crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

Last month, Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi re­vealed that 700 mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers will be part of the crime-solv­ing process.

Al-Rawi al­so wants to see the num­ber of of­fi­cers in­creas­ing to 1,500 by Sep­tem­ber.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Casimire said the first step was for the bor­ough to beef up its re­sources from 83 to 100 mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers. They have erect­ed an AMP "sub-post" on O'Meara Road which will re­spond to emer­gency calls around the clock.