De­spite a po­lice post be­ing near­by, Harpe Place res­i­dents are not con­fi­dent that will be enough to en­sure their safe­ty and have tak­en mat­ters in­to their own hands to pre­vent a re­peat of Sat­ur­day’s blood­bath. Yes­ter­day, res­i­dents set up makeshift bar­ri­cades at the main en­try and ex­it points of the com­mu­ni­ty.

The move came one day af­ter five men were gunned down in a brazen day­light shoot­ing.

Po­lice said the men iden­ti­fied as Rudolph Don­nie James, Randy Greaves, Sgt Lar­ry Phillip, Pe­te No­ray and De­von Jack were killed in the at­tack when a white Nis­san Ti­i­da drove on­to Harpe Place and opened fire on the men who were lim­ing.

Less than 24 hours af­ter the mur­ders, the res­i­dents have erect­ed makeshift bar­ri­cades at the four en­trances to the Harpe Place Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment on Ob­ser­va­to­ry Street.

The bar­ri­cades which con­sist­ed of pieces of board, bar­rels, bricks, shop­ping carts and cones are ex­pect­ed to serve as a bar­ri­er against strangers who in­tend to dri­ve in­to the hous­ing de­vel­op­ment.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the area yes­ter­day morn­ing, res­i­dents said the gun­men re­spon­si­ble for Sat­ur­day’s at­tack sim­ply drove on­to the build­ing, shot the men and left as eas­i­ly as they ar­rived with no re­sis­tance.

“I was hear­ing that the get­away ve­hi­cle they used was ac­tu­al­ly stuck in traf­fic when they left the build­ing for a bit be­fore they es­caped.

“We don’t have any gates or any­thing, so we are just do­ing our part to en­sure our safe­ty be­cause as bad as that (mur­ders) were yes­ter­day it still could have been much worse,” a res­i­dent said.

Re­fer­ring to chil­dren who usu­al­ly played be­tween build­ings at the de­vel­op­ment at the time, the res­i­dent said he was grate­ful none of them were hurt dur­ing the at­tack.

Res­i­dents al­so paid trib­ute to the vic­tims by plac­ing flow­ers by the bench where they sat chat­ting on Sat­ur­day. Can­dles were al­so placed in the com­mu­ni­ty to re­mem­ber the lives lost.

A friend of one of the vic­tims said he was strug­gling to come to terms with the in­ci­dent and his death.

The friend of Randy Greaves, who asked not to be named, said she was deeply sad­dened by his mur­der de­scrib­ing it as “sense­less”. She re­mem­bered him as a car­ing and friend­ly man.

She said Greaves left her home short­ly be­fore walk­ing to Harpe Place on Sat­ur­day where he was killed. She added he would of­ten warn her and oth­ers of the dan­gers of the neigh­bour­hood as gun­men of­ten shot in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly and with­out care.

“He used to warn us all the time with all this non­sense go­ing on.

“He used to say ‘stay off the road, stay off the front­line,’ es­pe­cial­ly when it hot. They (the per­pe­tra­tors) are prob­a­bly hap­py now, they are prob­a­bly re­joic­ing,” she said.

The res­i­dent re­called hear­ing gun­fire on Sat­ur­day morn­ing, think­ing it was the rat­tling from a va­grant with a shop­ping cart.

She said af­ter learn­ing that it was a shoot­ing, she tried call­ing Greaves sev­er­al times on his phone but was un­suc­cess­ful. The friend said she soon learned that he was one of the vic­tims.

Er­la: Hope­ful for a break­through

In a voice note re­leased yes­ter­day, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher con­demned the mur­ders and promised that the po­lice were work­ing to find those re­spon­si­ble.

“We are res­olute in work­ing to find the per­pe­tra­tors in this heinous act. We have de­ployed a co­or­di­nat­ed mul­ti-agency ap­proach and are hope­ful in mak­ing a break­through.

“I again give my com­mit­ment to all law-abid­ing cit­i­zens that the TTPS is fo­cused on di­rect­ing all avail­able re­sources in­to pro­tect­ing them from this scourge of gun vi­o­lence, gang vi­o­lence and the stress and trau­ma as­so­ci­at­ed with the loss of loved ones and mem­bers of our com­mu­ni­ties that comes with reprisals and counter reprisals,” said the Com­mis­sion­er.

One po­lice source said that such flare-ups of vi­o­lence are ex­pect­ed af­ter Car­ni­val when po­lice pres­ence sub­sides.

He not­ed that the lat­est mur­ders were most like­ly a reprisal for the mur­der of 11-year-old Ezekiel Paria in Feb­ru­ary. The po­lice source said it was part of con­tin­ued war­fare be­tween Sixx and Sev­en gangs in East Port-of-Spain and Laven­tille.

Of­fi­cers said none of the mur­dered men were the in­tend­ed tar­gets but were killed as the gun­men want­ed to send a mes­sage.

Po­lice from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion I are con­tin­u­ing en­quiries