Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter-In­ves­tiga­tive

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

St Au­gus­tine MP Khadi­jah Ameen says the shoot­ing death of an in­trud­er yes­ter­day morn­ing in her con­stituen­cy is a re­sult of in­ac­tion by the po­lice to ad­dress in­creas­ing crime in the St Au­gus­tine South ar­eas.

In a What­sApp re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia, Ameen said res­i­dents of Spring Vil­lage, Free­man Road and oth­er ar­eas have been un­der at­tack by ban­dits for some time and yes­ter­day’s shoot­ing death was be­cause of in­creas­ing frus­tra­tion.

“Over the last few months, we have had an in­crease in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty with­in the St Au­gus­tine South area. In the Spring Vil­lage area, in the St Au­gus­tine South com­mu­ni­ties and so on, we have had a lot of in­ci­dents of ban­dits roam­ing the streets, break­ing in­to peo­ple’s homes and steal­ing. We have in the con­stituen­cy a num­ber of in­ci­dents of mur­ders tak­ing place.”

Ameen was com­ment­ing on the shoot­ing death of an uniden­ti­fied in­trud­er who was killed when he and two oth­ers stormed the home of a 63-year-old FUL hold­er.

Po­lice re­port­ed that around 2.25 am the de­ceased, who is yet to be iden­ti­fied, and two oth­ers en­tered the man’s Free­man Road, St Au­gus­tine home. One of the men was armed with a gun, po­lice said.

The pen­sion­er, po­lice said, fired sev­en times at the men, who all ran off. The de­ceased ban­dit was lat­er found in a drain.

The de­ceased is in his ear­ly 20s, of African de­scent, with a corn­row hair­style, and was wear­ing a blue and white jer­sey, green sweater, three-quar­ter pants, and Nike slip­pers.

Ameen said, “The peo­ple of St Au­gus­tine South have been sit­ting ducks and we have been call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to take ac­tion to re­duce the crime. Be­cause the Gov­ern­ment has failed at that, the res­i­dents have been tak­ing ac­tion in­to their own hands and this is a case where the res­i­dents are now stand­ing their ground.”

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), to which Ameen be­longs, has been chas­tised by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) for re­peat­ed­ly ad­vo­cat­ing for Stand Your Ground leg­is­la­tion to ad­dress crime and more specif­i­cal­ly home in­va­sion.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley at a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre last month said the coun­try will need to bring down the lev­el of vi­o­lence in this coun­try. He said he did not know any­where in the world where this hap­pened with an in­flux of more guns.

“It is usu­al­ly the oth­er way around. We in T&T need to be care­ful what we are swal­low­ing and be more rea­son­able in our ap­proach. The worst place to dis­cuss some­thing like this is in a po­lit­i­cal plat­form sea­son. Many peo­ple see it as a go-to po­si­tion in pol­i­tics. But again, every­thing is pol­i­tics. Every­thing is pol­i­tics!”

Ameen added that the peo­ple of St Au­gus­tine and Spring Vil­lage have been stand­ing their ground by be­com­ing more or­gan­ised and form­ing neigh­bour­hood watch groups, us­ing tech­nol­o­gy such as What­sApp to com­mu­ni­cate bet­ter with their neigh­bours and in­stalling their own se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems.

“I don’t know the cir­cum­stances where the ban­dit was shot. But this seems to be an in­ci­dent where, be­cause the own­er of the premis­es had a li­cenced firearm, he was able to de­fend his home. And this is where the UNC speaks about giv­ing cit­i­zens the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­fend them­selves and de­fend their homes and their com­mu­ni­ties. It is not just about own­ing a gun but about stand­ing up and get­ting or­gan­ised. And this is hap­pen­ing be­cause of the fail­ure of the Gov­ern­ment to pre­vent crime from hap­pen­ing.”

Dr Row­ley in­di­cat­ed last week that he was open to crime talks with Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar who said the door “has al­ways been open” on her end.