To­ba­go’s mur­der toll has hit a record high af­ter gun­men in cam­ou­flage shot and killed four men in Black Rock yes­ter­day morn­ing. With five months left in the year, these mur­ders have pushed the is­land’s toll to 16 for 2024 so far, sur­pass­ing last year’s to­tal of 14.

In what is be­ing de­scribed by po­lice as an on­go­ing re­venge killing spree be­tween two groups, which be­gan in Mt Pleas­ant a week ago, Black Rock res­i­dents and busi­ness­es are now in fear that the war has reached their com­mu­ni­ty.

The de­ceased have been iden­ti­fied as Anslem Dou­glas, Gre­go­ry Ham­let, and Samuel Mc Cain and Jamo­ki Dun­can.

While three of the men were killed on the spot, Dun­can died last night at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Po­lice told Guardian Me­dia just af­ter mid­night that the men were gam­bling at Dou­glas’ home along Black Rock Main Road when they were am­bushed by three men. The men were shot about the body. They were all pro­nounced dead at the scene. The fourth vic­tim was shot and suf­fered a bro­ken leg dur­ing his es­cape, po­lice sources told Guardian Me­dia.

Rel­a­tives say Dou­glas was col­lat­er­al dam­age

A rel­a­tive of Dou­glas, who didn’t want to be named, be­lieves he was col­lat­er­al dam­age, and the in­tend­ed tar­get was Mc Cain, who lives in Mt Pleas­ant. She said the fam­i­ly is in shock and hav­ing a hard time deal­ing with the mur­der. She said, “If you shoot him, why you had to shoot him in his head when you’re leav­ing? They could have left him; he al­ready got shot in his chest.

“I just hear about eight gun­shots. My moth­er screamed out ‘gun­shots’. We saw the men come out and cir­cle the shop, then went un­der the shop to see who was hid­ing. They found a boy hid­ing un­der there and they kicked him up. “The fam­i­ly is griev­ing. They are dev­as­tat­ed; they don’t want to talk, they are in shock.”

She has no words for those re­spon­si­ble and has no in­ten­tion of for­giv­ing the per­pe­tra­tors any­time soon. “It makes no sense to tell them to put down the guns. Peo­ple say Black Rock is a hot area, but it is peo­ple who come to the vil­lage and do what they have to do. These men came for some­body, and I don’t think they got who they want­ed, yet.”

And she has no faith in the po­lice. “Too much shoot­ing and killing in To­ba­go. Crime go­ing on, and it feels like noth­ing is be­ing solved.”

‘To­ba­go is no longer safe’

Res­i­dents were tight-lipped and in fear of be­ing the next tar­get. Some were even baf­fled by the sit­u­a­tion. Still, Guardian Me­dia man­aged to speak to res­i­dents and one busi­ness in the com­mu­ni­ty. It ap­pears the fear of pos­si­bly be­ing the next tar­get weighed heav­i­ly on those who lived near­by and even oth­ers who wit­nessed the gun­men flee­ing the scene.

At 2 pm yes­ter­day, the live­ly com­mu­ni­ty stood still. One man who didn’t want to be named said To­ba­go is no longer safe. “Imag­ine there are chil­dren liv­ing in this yard. You can’t tell me peo­ple still have a heart. What could re­al­ly cause this? It both­er­ing (sic) bad.”

A shop own­er said that while the area has had its share of vi­o­lence over the past decade, the mur­ders yes­ter­day rocked the com­mu­ni­ty.

“We would have one mur­der, prob­a­bly a shoot­ing ... All the years I lived here. I can’t even re­call we hav­ing a dou­ble mur­der. We have a for­mer chief sec­re­tary liv­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty, and many oth­er stal­warts that built To­ba­go liv­ing here. You’re telling me no­body is safe now? It’s just (to) pack up and leave this whole place. Po­lice can’t man­age this.”

One off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer said he left the area a cou­ple of min­utes be­fore the in­ci­dent. By the time he re­turned, he met the grue­some scene.

An­oth­er man, a me­chan­ic, was hes­i­tant to even give his com­ments off-cam­era. He said he didn’t want any­thing out there that would make him the next easy tar­get. How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted to be­ing scared.

At one lim­ing cor­ner near Black Rock New Road, Guardian Me­dia over­heard a dis­cus­sion on the mur­der. One man ques­tioned why the per­pe­tra­tors would feel com­fort­able enough to en­ter the com­mu­ni­ty, sug­gest­ing they were out­siders or even gang mem­bers from Trinidad.

To­ba­go top cop to res­i­dents: Do not pan­ic

Mean­while, po­lice have asked To­bag­o­ni­ans not to pan­ic. “At this point in time, I as­sure you all is not lost. We are still polic­ing the is­land. The po­lice were out and about when the in­ci­dent hap­pened. It was just un­for­tu­nate these per­sons found them­selves in such an un­want­ed sit­u­a­tion.”

Hazel plead­ed with To­bag­o­ni­ans to band to­geth­er and “root out the reck­less­ness hap­pen­ing in To­ba­go.” He al­so con­ced­ed that To­ba­go now has a new prob­lem in­volv­ing high-pow­ered guns, which were used in yes­ter­day’s killings.

In May, a batch of 24 of­fi­cers from the In­ter­a­gency Task Force and the Guard and Emer­gency Branch were de­ployed to en­hance crime-fight­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties. Hazel said these of­fi­cers have been work­ing and were able to dis­man­tle an evolv­ing plot by one gang last Fri­day.

Yes­ter­day’s triple mur­der comes days af­ter a shoot­ing in Mt Pleas­ant on Ju­ly 4, where two men were in­jured and Val­sayn res­i­dent De­siree Lawrence was killed. Ex­act­ly one week ago, as To­ba­go braced for the im­pact of Hur­ri­cane Beryl, Nathan Roach was killed in his bed­room by an un­known gun­man at his Mt Pleas­ant home.

Gun­men then re­turned to the home and at­tacked a male rel­a­tive, who man­aged to es­cape.