Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian .co.tt

While many peo­ple were prepar­ing for er­rands yes­ter­day morn­ing, the fam­i­lies of five men, in­clud­ing a po­lice sergeant, were left in shock and grief af­ter their loved ones were gunned down in Harpe Place, East Port-of-Spain.  

Po­lice said of­fi­cers of the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) re­ceived a re­port of a shoot­ing at Harpe Place around 10.55 am and went to the area where they found the bod­ies of Rudolph Don­nie James, Randy Graves, 32, and Sgt Lar­ry Phillip, 51.  

Two men iden­ti­fied as 51-year-old Pe­te No­ray and De­von Jack, 43, were tak­en to hos­pi­tal by passers-by, where they were de­clared dead.  

Res­i­dents said No­ray was the CEO of garbage col­lec­tion com­pa­ny Barth-Baz San­i­ta­tion.  

Chaos reigned as a 44-year-old man was shot dur­ing the at­tack and a woman in­jured her­self when she fell while try­ing to run from the gun­fire.  

Po­lice have linked the killings to reprisals. Sources be­lieve the in­tend­ed tar­get of the shoot­ing may be a man who was im­pli­cat­ed in the mur­der of 11-year-old Ezekiel Paria in Feb­ru­ary.  

They said while the man was not in the im­me­di­ate area at the time of the at­tack, the killings were in­tend­ed to send a mes­sage.  

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the area yes­ter­day, crowds of res­i­dents packed the nar­row streets as they looked at crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors count­ing many spent shells on the ground.  

Speak­ing with re­porters at the scene, Phillip’s broth­er Lennox Phillip said he was hurt and shak­en af­ter hear­ing of the mur­der.  

Phillip, who said his broth­er was a fa­ther of two, called for an end to vi­o­lence and dis­cour­aged any reprisals.  

“Reprisal is not a good thing. It’s just us killing out our own. That’s all that’s hap­pen­ing.

“What is hurt­ing is that we keep killing out our own peo­ple, we keep killing out one an­oth­er and it’s just sad.”

Phillip said while he felt the po­lice were do­ing their best to con­tain vi­o­lence and crime, the pub­lic al­so had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to main­tain peace and or­der.  

“Our peo­ple are be­ing de­stroyed be­cause we dis­obey com­mand­ments. We dis­obey the laws of the most high and we need to go back to that. That’s the on­ly way out of this crim­i­nal lifestyle.”

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Supt Wayne Guer­ra, head of the TTPS band, said he and Phillip were re­cruit­ed in­to the po­lice ser­vice at the same time.  

He said Phillip, who had over 31 years of ser­vice, spoke about re­tir­ing soon.  

“He was a very qui­et, hum­ble per­son, al­ways help­ful and a very hard work­er like my­self.  

“His loss will be very much felt. He was al­ways in­volved in any ac­tiv­i­ty the band would have, it’s very sad and un­for­tu­nate of me to learn the way his pass­ing is. It puts a big damper up­on the en­tire band.”

Guer­ra said Phillip was skilled in play­ing the tenor sax­o­phone and bas­soon.

He al­so shared a fun­ny mo­ment where Phillip was part of a pa­rade in a field but un­know­ing­ly stood on an ant hill dur­ing his per­for­mance.  

“With the vi­bra­tion of the march­ing and the mu­sic, the whole nest came to life and he was reach­ing out to me for me to hold his sax­o­phone while he was stamp­ing and try­ing to dust off his leg. He was al­ways a laugh­ing per­son, al­ways liked to make jokes.”

Po­lice ask­ing pub­lic to

help with in­for­ma­tion

Head of the TTPS So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) ASP Gideon Dick­son al­so lament­ed Phillip’s mur­der, de­scrib­ing the killings as heinous.  

He said Phillip’s mur­der was proof that crime af­fect­ed every­one and called on the pub­lic to do their part to as­sist in­ves­ti­ga­tors.  

“We are call­ing on the pub­lic who would have heard, known or seen or may even have footage of the in­ci­dent to come for­ward and give the po­lice in­for­ma­tion as swift­ly as pos­si­ble to rid the streets of these per­sons who have no con­sid­er­a­tion at this point in time.”

Guardian Me­dia tried to speak to the fam­i­lies of oth­er vic­tims but were un­able to do so.

For hours af­ter the bod­ies of the men were re­moved, crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors and se­nior po­lice re­mained at the scene col­lect­ing ev­i­dence and sur­vey­ing the gen­er­al area.  

Po­lice said Harpe Place was part of the ter­ri­to­ry of the Sev­en gang.  

The killings hap­pened mere feet away from the con­stituen­cy of­fice of Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young.  

The men were among ten peo­ple killed in 24 hours be­tween Fri­day and yes­ter­day.

Young con­demns ac­tion

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions via What­sApp, Young con­demned the mur­ders, adding that de­spite the tragedy, he was as­sured by the po­lice and the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty that they would con­tin­ue to work to­wards main­tain­ing or­der.  

“I know with­in a mat­ter of min­utes the po­lice ser­vice were there and do­ing what had to be done and there’s an ac­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion go­ing on. I com­plete­ly con­demn the crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties and this crime and the crim­i­nal el­e­ment, a small hand­ful of them that seem to be af­fect­ing our so­ci­ety so neg­a­tive­ly.”

The killings hap­pened a few feet away from Char­lotte Street.  

In the past, the US Em­bassy has is­sued trav­el ad­vi­sories warn­ing trav­ellers to avoid cer­tain ar­eas as a re­sult of gang ac­tiv­i­ties.  

Last No­vem­ber sev­er­al peo­ple in East Port-of-Spain and Laven­tille were killed ow­ing to gang vi­o­lence be­tween the Sixx and Sev­en gangs.

Hous­ing Min­is­ter: These acts will not be con­doned

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Camille Robin­son-Reg­is has al­so con­demned the brazen shoot­ing and sub­se­quent mur­ders at the Harpe Place De­vel­op­ment.

Robin­son-Reg­is, in a re­lease, said the HDC strives to pro­vide af­ford­able liv­ing and safe, com­mu­nal liv­ing spaces for all of its res­i­dents and she strong­ly re­buked such acts of vi­o­lence in the cap­i­tal city.

She said the HDC en­cour­ages all res­i­dents to live in peace, and en­deav­ours to cre­ate a place of com­fort for all. She added that no res­i­dent should feel un­safe in their own homes.

Robin­son-Reg­is re­it­er­at­ed that such at­tacks will not be con­doned or tol­er­at­ed.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is ac­tive­ly search­ing for the sus­pects and will con­tin­ue in­ves­ti­gat­ing this mat­ter.

The HDC said it stands ready to as­sist the TTPS to en­sure those guilty of this crime are brought to jus­tice.

Chair­man of the HDC Noel Gar­cia chas­tised the act and called for peace with­in the city of Port-of-Spain and, by ex­ten­sion, the coun­try.

Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of the HDC Jay­selle Mc­Far­lane shared sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments and re­flect­ed on the long-term trau­ma this could have on those who wit­nessed the as­sault.