Another bloody 24 hours has left four people dead and three others injured.
Gang violence has been linked to all of the incidents.
One of victims, a KFC employee, was killed in a random shooting in gang territory as she was on her way to her Laventille home. Also a man, identified as Wendell John, 40, of Maraval, was killed after exiting the Port-of-Spain General Hospital shortly after 1 pm. The next victim, an unidentified man, was shot and injured at La Puerta, Diego Martin.
On Wednesday night, three people were shot in the St Barb’s area—one of them identified as a reputed Rasta City gang leader, 31-year-old Dexter “Pull Skin” Joseph. Joseph and another man identified as Joel Anthony Moore, 30, also known as “Thinners”, were killed while another man, identified only by his alias “Biscuit”, was injured.
Residents reported sustained rapid gunfire after the incident and claimed gang members were reacting to Joseph’s murder.
In an incident which drew the most outrage, Dawn Patricia Grant, 44, of Sixth Avenue, Malick, was in a vehicle travelling through Dan Kelly when gunmen opened fire on the car around 1.15 am.
Grant was a supervisor at the Morvant Junction KFC outlet.
Police believe gunmen riddled a car with bullets thinking it belonged to one of their rivals. Grant was shot several times to the head and upper body.
Another person who was in the car was also shot and wounded.
The driver of the vehicle escaped unhurt and was able to take Grant and the other person to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital.
Grant, however, succumbed to her injuries at about 4.30 am.
Grant’s father, 66-year-old Gaston Spring, a national of St Vincent, expressed disgust in the Government’s handling of crime and called for stringent measures to be put in place that will act as deterrents and will also serve as a lesson to those who do the crime.
“They should cut off their two hands, those who shoot and kill people. My daughter was so innocent...she was going home from work. She worked very hard and is over five years she working there. They were dropping off people home from work when I hear they shoot up the car,” Spring said.
“The Government doing nothing to stop this murders and shootings that gone so out of hand. When is it going to stop? They making it hard for people. Can you imagine what I’m going through with this now?” he asked.
Spring said Grant, who has a son in his 20s, was born in St Vincent but added that she came to Trinidad as a little girl. He described her as a hard-working person who was loving and joyous.
In the earlier Laventille double murder, police believe Joseph and the two other men were “caught off-guard” by rival gang members.
Police said around 8.30 pm Joseph, Moore and another man were shot during a drive-by shooting.
A police report stated that all three men were liming with a group of friends along Blundell Alley when a car drove slowly past them and a passenger opened fire before the vehicle sped off.
One resident, who wished not to identified, said everyone knows who are the “problem and revengeful ones...even the police but nothing is being done.”
“People are afraid to talk too because you can be killed...some of the fellas have guns to protect themselves too...everybody wants to live,” the resident said.
Another resident said that generally the youths in the area are engaged in empowerment programmes but added that they are “still be hunted by rival gang members. They still can’t venture into other areas because they will be killed because of where they are from. Change is hard to come by.”
Joseph’s relatives blamed the police for his murder and for contributing to the spike in the gang war in recent days in both the Laventille and Port-of-Spain areas.
At the Forensic Science Centre in St James, Joseph’s relatives, who did not want to be identified, would only say, “The police is to blame...they know who the killers are and they refuse to lock them up...the police not doing anything about it because they siding with the other gang...they come in last night (Wednesday) when it happen and only gimmicking and laughing.”
They said Joseph was a foreman under the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP) and also had his own construction company in addition to owning and operating a parlour in the area. The parlour is painted in the colours of red, green and yellow—associated with the Rasta Gang.
They added that he joined the gang only to defend himself, “because the Muslims only killing them out...but this time he could not defend himself.”
Joseph’s relatives, who described him as humble, said he was expecting babies from two different women.
Moore’s mother, Melanie Daniel said she was unaware her son had gone to St Barb’s on Wednesday night. Moore was originally from Redhill in Morvant but lived in St James.
Daniel admitted that she was a single parent by choice as she took Moore and his sister away from their father because she wanted them to have a better life. She said, later on, she left behind both of her children and migrated looking for a better life in a bid to “keep their heads above the water.”
A decision she now thinks impacted her son leading to his destruction.
Daniel said she only saw the good qualities of her son, who was the father of two—a nine-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter.