A to­tal of 13 killings with­in 36 hours–be­tween 5.50 am on Fri­day to 6 pm on Sat­ur­day–four of which were said to be po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings, saw law en­force­ment of­fi­cials hav­ing to work late in­to the nighton Sat­ur­day as mul­ti­ple in­ves­ti­ga­tions got un­der­way.

At least 12 of the killings were gun-re­lat­ed.

Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc Don­ald Ja­cob on Sat­ur­day as­suredthat the TTPS First Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers had been ap­point­ed to in­ves­ti­gate the re­cent rash of po­lice killings, even as he ac­knowl­edged the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) would launch its own in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the lat­est in­ci­dents.

CJ Dan

The body count

San­gre Grande

The body count be­gan af­ter Win­ston Pe­ter Walk­er or Mous­sa Walk­er, of mul­ti­ple ad­dress­es in Clax­ton Bay, Debe, Dow Vil­lage and Mara­bel­la, was found at Ojoe Road, San­gre Grande, around 5.50 am on Fri­day.

The 34-year-old had been shot sev­er­al times and dumped at the side of the road. A white Hyundai Ac­cent was parked five feet away from his body. Po­lice stat­ed that the ve­hi­cle was a rental from San Fer­nan­do.

The body was viewed by Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Trim and or­dered to be re­moved to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James for an au­top­sy. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.

Long Cir­cu­lar

Al­so on Fri­day, just around 2.35 pm, po­lice were called to Belle Vue Road, Dibe, Long Cir­cu­lar, af­ter Wade Par­ris, 34, was shot in the vicin­i­ty of Com­mu­ni­ty Lane. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said that he was walk­ing home when gun­men opened fire on him. He was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal by res­i­dents and lat­er died.

Port-of-Spain

Mean­while, at 3.20 am on Sat­ur­day, six men from var­i­ous ar­eas with­in Laven­tille were said to be re­turn­ing from a par­ty in Co­corite when they were pur­sued by of­fi­cers.

It is al­leged the oc­cu­pants shot at law­men, and they re­turned fire, killing three and in­jur­ing the oth­ers.

Fa­bi­en Richards, 22 and his nephew Isa­iah Williams, 17, both of St Barb’s, and Niko Williams, 21, of Beetham Gar­dens, were killed in­stant­ly. One oth­er man was al­so shot and said to be in crit­i­cal con­di­tion at the hos­pi­tal up to late on Sat­ur­day. The oth­er two men es­caped un­hurt.

The high-speed chase re­sult­ed in the men’s car crash­ing in­to the wall of Re­pub­lic Bank Lim­it­ed, Cha­con Street and In­de­pen­dence Square, Port-of-Spain.

Be­liev­ing young black men lim­ing to­geth­er in groups were now tar­gets for po­lice and could be in dan­ger of be­ing in­no­cent­ly gunned down, a griev­ing fa­ther cried out for jus­tice as he strug­gled to di­gest the shock­ing news that his son had been killed dur­ing a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing.

Chok­ing back tears as he hugged his wife, Nicole, at their El So­cor­ro home, Garth Richards said, “This trig­gers me to ask if the sys­tem re­al­ly for us or not for we? Six ni...s in a car, six ni...s is crim­i­nal? Be­cause they liv­ing in Laven­tille? Be­cause they dri­ving a Ti­da?”

Richards added, “If was a ve­hi­cle from West­moor­ings, Good­wood Park, New­bury, what­ev­er…and they dri­ving an Au­di, a Benz or an X-Trail, what the po­lice will do, try to slow them down, stop them, and say ex­cuse, what go­ing on here?”

Nicole Richards de­nied her son was in­volved in any crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties. She was adamant his death would not be in vain, and in­sist­ed that she would be fil­ing a re­port with the PCA.

Mor­vant

Two-and-a-half hours lat­er, fol­low­ing the Port-of-Spain po­lice shoot­ings, an­oth­er group of po­lice of­fi­cers ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant at the home of Tris­ton “Rat­ty” Springer at Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, Mor­vant. In­ves­ti­ga­tors claim that he point­ed a gun at them, and they re­turned fire.

Springer was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, where he was pro­nounced dead.

The fresh po­lice killings came just hours af­ter the PCA had sub­mit­ted an in­de­pen­dent re­port in­to the shoot­ing death of po­lice con­sta­ble Clarence Gilkes who was shot on April 22 in Rich Plain, Diego Mar­tin. The PCA said it showed a clear abuse of pow­er by the po­lice of­fi­cers who al­leged­ly shot their col­league.

San­gre Grande

But the bloody Sat­ur­day did not end there, just one hour lat­er at 6.45 am, of­fi­cers at San­gre Grande and Va­len­cia were called to the scene where the bul­let-rid­dled body of an uniden­ti­fied African man was found ly­ing in a pool of blood at the cor­ner of Sawmill Trace and Old Va­len­cia Road.

The man was dressed in a black jer­sey, black pants and a pair of black slip­pers. There were sev­er­al gun­shot wounds to the head. The de­ceased could be in his late 30s. The body re­mained uniden­ti­fied up to late on Sat­ur­day.

The scene was processed by homi­cide of­fi­cers, who found three spent shells.

Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Bel­grave viewed the body and or­dered it be re­moved to the San­gre Grande mor­tu­ary, from where it will be tak­en to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre on Mon­day for an au­top­sy.

Arou­ca

Just be­fore mid­day–of­fi­cers were called to the home of Evans Hen­ry at Spring Road, Five Rivers, Arou­ca, who was killed by a male rel­a­tive over a land dis­pute. Po­lice be­lieve he was beat­en to death.

The rel­a­tive re­mained in po­lice cus­tody up to last night.

Keron Pope

North Coast Road

And the bloody ram­page con­tin­ued just half-hour lat­er when four men were killed at Dami­an’s Bay, An­vaya Lane, North Coast Road.

Po­lice re­ports iden­ti­fied the vic­tims as Keron Pope; Eli­jah Far­rel; CJ Dan; and Min­cy Boy.

The San­ta Cruz res­i­dents were said to have been in the com­pa­ny of two women when they were am­bushed by un­known gun­men as they emerged from the wa­ter.

Mincy Boy

The men were killed while try­ing to es­cape in their ve­hi­cle but were shot mul­ti­ple times by the gun­men. So­cial me­dia videos showed the dead men in­side the ve­hi­cle with the car doors open.

The two women were not harmed dur­ing the in­ci­dent which rocked the qui­et beach­side com­mu­ni­ty.

Al­though rel­a­tives of the vic­tims were present at the scene on Sat­ur­day, they de­clined to speak with the Sun­day Guardian as up to 3 pm, they were still wait­ing to see the bod­ies.

Police at the scene of the murder of Curtis Harriot of Whiteland, Williamsville along the Solomon Hochoy Highway, Debe, on Saturday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

Debe

And then around 6 pm, 35-year-old con­struc­tion work­er, Cur­tis Har­riot, of Williamsville, was shot dead in his ve­hi­cle as he drove along the Solomon Ho­choy High­way, Debe.

Har­riot and two oth­er men were in a white Ford Ranger re­turn­ing home af­ter play­ing in a crick­et match at a recre­ation ground at Gand­hi Vil­lage.

While dri­ving along the north­bound lane of the Solomon Ho­choy High­way, the oc­cu­pants of a black Xtrail with flash­ing blue lights sig­nalled them to pull to the side. The dri­ver com­plied.

A man dressed in black alight­ed from the Xtrail and fired sev­er­al shots at Har­riot who was in the front pas­sen­ger seat.

The gun­man then re­turned to the Xtri­al which speed off.

Har­riot died at the scene.

How­ev­er, of­fi­cers of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Task Force lat­er in­ter­cept­ed an Xtrail with three oc­cu­pants be­lieved to be the sus­pects on the Uri­ah But­ler High­way near Ch­agua­nas. In­ves­ti­ga­tors were still try­ing to de­ter­mine a mo­tive last evening.

Of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion 3 are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.

CoP: Se­nior of­fi­cers to in­ves­ti­gate

Com­ment­ing on the po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc Don­ald Ja­cob as­sured, “When­ev­er there is a po­lice killing, there are clear pro­ce­dures to be fol­lowed which in­cludes the ap­point­ment of a First Di­vi­sion of­fi­cer to in­ves­ti­gate and this will be done in both of these in­ci­dents.”

He said the PCA al­so had the au­thor­i­ty to in­ves­ti­gate, and he ex­pects this will be done.

Ja­cob said the TTPS had in­tro­duced a Pa­trol Grid Sys­tem which was aimed at im­prov­ing re­sponse times in re­la­tion to calls/tips from the pub­lic, which would mean short­er de­lays for help to ar­rive.

He ad­vised, “There will in fact, at times now, be more en­coun­ters with the po­lice and per­sons who may com­mit acts and at­tempt to flee or es­cape the scene. The po­lice will be able to re­spond more ef­fec­tive­ly and time­ly.”

Mean­while, 41 ad­di­tion­al mo­tor­cy­cle of­fi­cers will soon be added to the pa­trol ros­ter.

Ex­tend­ing sym­pa­thies and con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies of all the vic­tims, Ja­cob said gang vi­o­lence and il­le­gal firearms were re­spon­si­ble for many of these mur­ders.