Sascha Wil­son

Gun vi­o­lence has again rocked Fyz­abad, leav­ing a young man dead and his cousin in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion.

The mur­der of 25-year-old Ha­keem “Skin­ny” Pe­ters came five days af­ter Joshua Ma­habir, a fa­ther of three, was gunned down at John Jules Trace.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are still on­go­ing but in­for­ma­tion un­earthed so far has led of­fi­cers to be­lieve the two mur­ders may be linked.

Po­lice were told that short­ly be­fore 8.30 pm on Mon­day, Ky­on Ramd­han, 21, was re­vers­ing a Nis­san Ver­sa out of his un­cle’s yard at Del­hi Road with Pe­ters in the front pas­sen­ger seat.

Sev­er­al loud ex­plo­sions were heard and on check­ing, Ramd­han’s un­cle saw the ve­hi­cle crash­ing in­to some fig trees along the side of the road. Ramd­han got out and ran to the back of the house. Pe­ters was slumped over on the dri­ver’s seat with gun­shot wounds to the back. The keys were still in the ig­ni­tion and the en­gine was still run­ning.

Ramd­han’s fa­ther took him to the hos­pi­tal where he un­der­went surgery. Po­lice re­trieved 50 spent shell cas­ings at the scene.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Pe­ters’ home at Leza­ma Trace, South Oropouche, his moth­er was not at home.

How­ev­er, a rel­a­tive said Pe­ters was un­em­ployed, as he was still re­cov­er­ing from gun­shot in­juries he sus­tained dur­ing a hit on his life in 2020 in San Fer­nan­do.

He said Pe­ters was shot sev­en times, in­clud­ing twice in the head.

The rel­a­tive be­lieves Pe­ters fol­lowed wrong com­pa­ny and was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Pe­ters’ neigh­bour Mar­vin Allen, who lived a few hous­es away from him, was fa­tal­ly shot last month in front his home fol­low­ing an ar­gu­ment with a man. When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Ramd­han’s un­cle’s home, a woman re­fused to com­ment on the in­ci­dent.

How­ev­er, res­i­dents said gun vi­o­lence in the com­mu­ni­ty had left them scared. The street where Ma­habir was killed is with­in the area.

Ren­ni­son Ramdin said he and his broth­er were re­pair­ing an old tele­vi­sion at the back of their house when they heard the rapid shots.

“We hear like some­thing hit­ting the gal­va­nize, bow, bow, bow and then we re­alise is gun­shots go­ing up the road there, fast, fast.”

He said they were scared so they wait­ed a while and then walked to the scene but the po­lice had al­ready cor­doned off the area.

“The place around here quite, so we fraid to come out, no­body want to come out. We eh know what go­ing on,” he lament­ed.

Ramdin sug­gest­ed that the po­lice in­crease mo­bile pa­trols in the area. There have been ten mur­ders in the South West­ern Di­vi­sion for the year, with five oc­cur­ring in Fyz­abad, po­lice said.