A brazen am­bush by gang mem­bers led to car­nage along the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way in St Au­gus­tine yes­ter­day, as four peo­ple, in­clud­ing an in­no­cent woman who was in her house, were mur­dered.

The gun­men were tar­get­ing the Trini­bad artiste known as Kashif “Kman 6ixx” Alexan­der when they launched a gun at­tack along the west­bound lane of one of the coun­try’s busiest high­ways. Po­lice be­lieve the at­tack was or­ches­trat­ed af­ter a pic­ture of the en­ter­tain­er and his en­tourage, show­ing them set to de­part the air­port in Bar­ba­dos for Trinidad, was post­ed to so­cial me­dia less than one hour be­fore.

In­stead, the at­tack­ers killed cousins Damien Criss, 26, and Levi Criss, who was said to be in his mid-20s, along with Jer­ry Hollingsworth, 31.

Lana Sa­hadeo, 51, of Bassie Street, St Au­gus­tine, was al­so killed af­ter be­ing hit by a bul­let in­tend­ed for one of the oth­er vic­tims. Sa­hadeo was the own­er of the Sil­ver Spoons Eatery in Val­sayn.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors con­firmed Alexan­der’s flight land­ed at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port at 1.40 pm and the group left there in a white wag­on around 2.35 pm.

It was re­port­ed that as the car stopped at the in­ter­sec­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine, a black car pulled along­side and gun­men opened fire on the en­ter­tain­er’s car.

The dri­ver of the car un­der at­tack sped off in an at­tempt to es­cape but the oth­er car pur­sued them and the gun­men con­tin­ued fir­ing, un­til the oth­er car ran through the met­al bar­ri­er on the left side of the road­way, just be­fore the walkover there, and crashed in­to a con­tain­er which near Steve and As­so­ciates, a busi­ness place.

Af­ter the car crashed, some of the pas­sen­gers ran out and be­gan run­ning in var­i­ous di­rec­tions. How­ev­er, the gun­men got out their ve­hi­cle and first pumped sev­er­al bul­lets in­to the dri­ver, who had been pinned be­hind the wheel, be­fore pur­su­ing the oth­ers. The dri­ver died at the scene.

The gun­men shot an­oth­er of the vic­tims as he ran east along the high­way. He col­lapsed and died in the mid­dle of the road­way. All this while there were scores of mo­torists head­ing east in traf­fic. The third man was pur­sued and killed along Bassie Street.

Po­lice be­lieve Sa­hadeo may have been peep­ing from a win­dow of her sec­ond-storey house as the gun­shots rang out, and was struck in the head by a stray bul­let as the gun­men ran shoot­ing af­ter their tar­get along Bassie Street.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Sa­hadeo was due to the leave the coun­try on Fri­day for Mi­a­mi.

One of the two sur­viv­ing mem­bers of the at­tack was said to be nurs­ing an in­jury to the right shoul­der, while Alexan­der es­caped un­harmed.

Po­lice said al­so sur­vived a gun at­tack in Oc­to­ber along Ari­api­ta Av­enue in Wood­brook.

These killings pushed the year’s mur­der toll to 567 yes­ter­day, com­pared to 598 for the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od last year.

As Sa­hadeo’s rel­a­tives rushed to her home last evening as news of the killings spread, res­i­dents and friends wept open­ly as they mourned her pass­ing.

One woman de­scribed her as a, “friend­ly, lov­ing, car­ing, easy go­ing per­son who would give you any­thing.”

Re­mem­ber­ing Sa­hadeo’s fa­mous dish­es which she was wide­ly known for, such as baigan cho­ka, fry aloo and toma­to cho­ka, which per­sons would line up for dai­ly at Val­sayn, the emo­tion­al woman cried, “The crime sit­u­a­tion is out of con­trol. No where is safe any more. I am scared to go any­where...she was at home.”

The mid-af­ter­noon shoot­ings led to a traf­fic grid­lock along both lanes of the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way, and re­sult­ed in the au­thor­i­ties di­vert­ing traf­fic along the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route, which was lat­er opened up to traf­fic from cer­tain ar­eas by the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing that the in­ci­dent was “very, very se­ri­ous,” Snr Supt in the North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, Richard Smith, said it un­der­scored the cav­a­lier at­ti­tude of those who com­mit­ted the act. He said it demon­strat­ed a, “lack of care and con­cern for any­body on the road­way, and for any­body else who was stand­ing near­by.”

Smith warned, how­ev­er, that the cow­ard­ly act would not be con­doned, as law en­force­ment will be go­ing af­ter the per­pe­tra­tors.

“We are not tak­ing this light­ly and will be putting our best in­ves­ti­ga­tors on it,” Smith as­sured the pub­lic.

“This is a se­ri­ous time where peo­ple have lost val­ue for life and for any­thing around them.

“We love our coun­try and we have to fight for it. We can’t let these peo­ple stop us from liv­ing our lives and do­ing what we sup­posed to do.”

An­oth­er law en­force­ment of­fi­cial de­scribed the lo­ca­tion cho­sen to am­bush the ve­hi­cle as a “per­fect kill zone,” as there were no traf­fic lights head­ed west af­ter that in­ter­sec­tion.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic with any in­for­ma­tion are asked to con­tact the TTPS at 555, or the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion or the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion.