JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Four men have been mur­dered in Mor­vant since Tues­day morn­ing, with the lat­est killing oc­cur­ring at around 5 am yes­ter­day.

Po­lice said Nathaniel Lewis, 21, of Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, was at home when gun­men stormed the house and opened fire. He ran out of the house and col­lapsed on the road, where he was shot sev­er­al times again.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Lewis’ home in Sec­ond Cale­do­nia Ex­ten­sion yes­ter­day, his rel­a­tives de­clined to speak with the me­dia.

Res­i­dents were al­so re­luc­tant to speak, ex­cept for one woman who said she had been liv­ing in the area for 81 years and that yes­ter­day was the first time she had ever felt so un­easy.

An­oth­er man, who has lived in the com­mu­ni­ty for 50 years, said, “It have no good feel­ing” about the sit­u­a­tion.

Three men who were seen seat­ed op­po­site the scene where Lewis was killed called on the MP for the area to pro­vide as­sis­tance for youths in the com­mu­ni­ty.

On Wednes­day morn­ing, of­fi­cers found the body of 57-year-old Clarence Thomp­son in a bushy area be­hind his Crichlow Trace, Chi­napoo, home.

Res­i­dents re­port­ed­ly heard gun­shots around 10 pm the pre­vi­ous night. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 12 hours lat­er, vol­un­teers from the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team di­rect­ed po­lice to Thomp­son’s body.

On Tues­day night, the body of 62-year-old Steve Grif­fith was dis­cov­ered along a track in Sec­ond Cale­do­nia. Ear­li­er that day, Tyrell Hink­son was gunned down.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing the third killing in two days, head of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion, Snr Supt Claire Guy-Al­leyne, as­sured res­i­dents that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice was tak­ing the vi­o­lence se­ri­ous­ly.

She said there had been an in­creased po­lice pres­ence and on­go­ing op­er­a­tional ac­tiv­i­ties in af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties aimed at pre­vent­ing fur­ther blood­shed.

The lat­est killings come amid con­tin­u­ing con­cerns over gang-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence in Mor­vant.

In Ju­ly, Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that res­i­dents across the com­mu­ni­ty were on edge be­cause of per­sis­tent vi­o­lent crime and fears of an es­ca­lat­ing gang war.

On Ju­ly 18, Khalil Williams, 22, Mikal “Bee­bo” Camp­bell, 29, and Selvon Jack, 50, were shot dead at a Unipet ser­vice sta­tion at the cor­ner of the East­ern Main Road and Mor­vant Old Road.

Days lat­er, Frankie Bartholomew, al­so known as “Fishie”, was al­so mur­dered.

At the time, res­i­dents called for greater in­ter­ven­tion from so­cial work­ers and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, ar­gu­ing that the ero­sion of com­mu­ni­ty ties, cou­pled with lim­it­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple, was con­tribut­ing to the cy­cle of vi­o­lence.

They said stronger so­cial sup­port pro­grammes were need­ed to ad­dress the root caus­es of crime.

Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Chris­t­ian Birch­wood echoed those con­cerns, say­ing more co­or­di­nat­ed ef­forts were need­ed to make crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty less at­trac­tive to young peo­ple.