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Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Gang rivalry leads to eight murders in Arima, St Augustine

by

Rhondor Dowlat-Rostant
1342 days ago
20210714

Two women were among eight peo­ple mur­dered yes­ter­day in Ari­ma and St Au­gus­tine as po­lice fear gang war­fare has now bro­ken out over the mur­der of Ka­reem “Pin­to Boss” Wal­ters of Pin­to Road in Ari­ma on Mon­day.

Po­lice say that at 8.40 am, Dawn Mc Ken­na, 40, of St John’s Road, St Au­gus­tine, was dri­ving her Tuc­son mo­tor ve­hi­cle east along the Ari­ma Old Road in the com­pa­ny of her son, Jor­dan Mc Ken­na, 19, and an­oth­er man iden­ti­fied as Je­re­my De Fre­itas, 18, when they were blocked by a sil­ver Ti­i­da.

An­oth­er ve­hi­cle pulled up on the road­way be­hind them from which two men alight­ed opened fire on the three of them.

As one of the vic­tims tried to run away, one of the killers pur­sued him over a gate and con­tin­ued shoot­ing.

They all died on the spot.

Ten min­utes lat­er, five more res­i­dents of St John’s Road were killed and one wound­ed.

In that in­ci­dent, po­lice said that at 8:50 am Jasper Jones, 32, was at his shop with Cal­lis­tus Math­ew Per­reira aka Ming, 30, and Khalil Jack­son aka Tal­lo, 23, when five men came out of a white AD wag­on and be­gan fir­ing sev­er­al shots in their di­rec­tion.

Jones fell on the spot where he died. Per­reira was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex by mem­bers of the St Joseph CID in com­pa­ny with Jack­son. Per­reira was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival and Jack­son was treat­ed and said to be in a sta­ble con­di­tion.

At the same time of­fi­cers of the St Joseph CID, while on the scene of the shoot­ing, re­ceived in­for­ma­tion of a body found in a forest­ed area ap­prox­i­mate­ly two miles away at Up­per St John’s Road.

Po­lice Con­sta­ble Vi­tal­is and oth­er of­fi­cers dis­cov­ered the bod­ies of three peo­ple—one fe­male and two males—with chop wounds to their necks ly­ing on the ground among some bush­es.

They were iden­ti­fied as Mustapha Mo­hammed, 44, his wife Aman­da Mo­hammed, 39, both of LP 58 Up­per St John’s Road St Au­gus­tine and Kendall Rivers of Up­per St John’s Road St Au­gus­tine.

Po­lice said they were all bound and gagged.

Po­lice said the gun­men in all the at­tacks were be­lieved to have been armed with high-pow­ered weapons.

Po­lice told Guardian Me­dia that the killings in­di­cate an up­surge in gang ac­tiv­i­ties and they be­lieved that it was part of an on­go­ing gang war over drugs and turf. A po­lice source added that the up­surge sprung up af­ter Wal­ters was killed in Matu­ra on Mon­day.

Police officers patrol along St John’s Road, St Augustine following the murder of five persons where two were shot and three throats slit, yesterday.

Police officers patrol along St John’s Road, St Augustine following the murder of five persons where two were shot and three throats slit, yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Res­i­dents shocked and sad­dened

A res­i­dent in the area, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied said that he’s sad­dened by the killings.

“I heard the gun­shots but I didn’t know where it came from but when I saw the po­lice I said, ‘right is here’. But it is sad be­cause all of us are hu­man be­ings and it is the first time I’m see­ing some­thing like this hap­pen­ing in the area. The peo­ple will now live in fear be­cause of what hap­pened.”

A sis­ter of one of the vic­tims at Up­per St John’s Road said up to Tues­day night she spoke to her broth­er.

“My broth­er was good. This morn­ing (Wednes­day) I got a call from my niece say­ing she mum­my and dad­dy die and then she got cut off. Then an­oth­er per­son called me and I came up here. My broth­er was go­ing to his gar­den and his wife de­cid­ed that she would go too and they killed them. No­body de­serve this. I would not wish this on my worst en­e­my.”

The woman said her broth­er leaves be­hind two chil­dren—a 21-year-old son and a daugh­ter who will be cel­e­brat­ing her 14th birth­day next week. “These chil­dren will suf­fer.”

An­oth­er res­i­dent told the Guardian Me­dia that she was hor­ri­fied to hear the screams and cries of the fam­i­ly mem­bers in mourn­ing.

“I live in the val­ley and you can hear the cries of fam­i­lies in mourn­ing all around you. This has shak­en up our peace­ful com­mu­ni­ty and left all of us trau­ma­tised. I per­son­al­ly be­lieve that this is not the end that it will have more and who will come knock­ing at our doors when it surges? We are all scared.”

The res­i­dent said over the years there had been se­ri­ous crimes and be­lieves that it has al­ready im­pact­ed on vis­i­tors and wor­ship­pers to the Abbey at Mount St Bene­dict.

“So many things hap­pen and it go un­re­port­ed in the me­dia and so many peo­ple come here to vis­it the church or to jog or walk be­cause of the peace­ful en­vi­ron­ment but now peo­ple are com­ing not so fre­quent be­cause of the crimes and now this spate of killings will have a big­ger im­pact on who’s com­ing and who’s not. Here when you wake up on morn­ings you can hear the birds chirp­ing and when it rains you can see the mist, it’s so serene but this love­ly com­mu­ni­ty is shak­en up very bad­ly.”

The res­i­dent added that there should be some­thing tan­gi­ble im­ple­ment­ed to ef­fect change.

“Many of the young peo­ple’s fa­thers have been killed and it’s left for the moth­ers to raise them but there should be a men­tor­ship pro­gramme put in place joint­ly by the po­lice and of­fi­cials from Mount St Bene­dict. Let them come to­geth­er and start a men­tor pro­gramme to bring back the youths who have gone astray and who are sway­ing to­wards the bad el­e­ments. This is what we need and I be­lieve that change can come be­cause we re­al­ly don’t know what caused all these killings but we know that the youths sway to il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties in the area.”

Mustapha Mohammed and Amanda Mohammed

Mustapha Mohammed and Amanda Mohammed

Po­lice gear­ing up for re­tal­i­a­tions

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice in charge of Op­er­a­tions Mc Don­ald Ja­cob said both sets of mur­ders were con­nect­ed.

“We have mul­ti­ple killings, five in this lo­ca­tion and three in an­oth­er lo­ca­tion in Ari­ma. We be­lieve the two in­ci­dents are con­nect­ed,” Ja­cob said.

He al­so dis­closed that they are prepar­ing for reprisals.

“The po­lice are car­ry­ing out in­ves­ti­ga­tions in the ar­eas and we have troops on the ground as we are prepar­ing for any kind of reprisal.”

“As you know this di­vi­sion is volatile. We have the nec­es­sary of­fi­cers to deal with the sit­u­a­tion. But this which hap­pened this morn­ing (Wednes­day) is some­thing which we will re­spond to firm­ly and will re­spond to im­me­di­ate­ly,” Ja­cob said.

He added that he hopes that very soon the homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors will solve the mur­ders.

“At this stage on the sur­face of it, it ap­pears to be drug-re­lat­ed, but we have not con­firmed this as yet. But we will be do­ing our in­quiries. At this state with the eight mur­ders, we have six males and two fe­males,” he added.

Ja­cob not­ed that once gang ac­tiv­i­ty is tak­ing place in any coun­try, dur­ing a State of Emer­gency or not, these gang ac­tiv­i­ties would con­tin­ue and these things can re­sult.

“You can look at Ja­maica and even in the US where you can have an SoE and killings still oc­cur. The SoE does not re­move or­gan­ised crime and gang ac­tiv­i­ties. If it was so we would just call an SoE and gang ac­tiv­i­ties would just van­ish. But this does not hap­pen. We don’t ex­pect ‘cause we have an SoE that crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties will cease,” Ja­cob said.


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