An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

An af­ter­noon mur­der at East Side Plaza, Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day left store own­ers shak­en, but se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers con­tin­ue to in­sist they have the crime sit­u­a­tion un­der con­trol.

A Ch­agua­nas man, em­ployed as a clean­er at the mall for the past three years, was shot dead around 3.40 pm, prompt­ing the im­me­di­ate clo­sure of the fa­cil­i­ty.

Re­ports in­di­cate the vic­tim, iden­ti­fied on­ly as “Kwan­do,” stepped out of the kitchen in­to an open cor­ri­dor af­ter re­ceiv­ing a phone call, where two gun­men were wait­ing. He col­lapsed af­ter be­ing shot, and the as­sailants fled on foot to­wards George Street.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the scene, sev­er­al mall own­ers and op­er­a­tors were seen hur­ried­ly pack­ing their be­long­ings. Mem­bers of the pub­lic, trapped in­side af­ter met­al shut­ters were pulled down fol­low­ing the shoot­ing, were guid­ed by po­lice to ex­it through a side en­trance along Char­lotte Street.

Wit­ness­es de­scribed the vic­tim as a calm and qui­et man. An of­fi­cial at the mall con­firmed he was easy-go­ing and not known to have con­flicts with any­one. His moth­er and sis­ter lat­er ar­rived to iden­ti­fy his body.

The killing brings the re­cent two-week mur­der toll past 25, yet Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin urged the pub­lic not to judge the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) sole­ly by this spike.

He not­ed that, de­spite re­cent in­ci­dents, po­lice ef­forts have been in­stru­men­tal in keep­ing the mur­der rate be­low last year’s fig­ures.

“We have done the ground­work, and it is im­por­tant that we don’t just take two weeks of in­tense con­fronta­tion by per­sons who seek to op­pose jus­tice to brand the coun­try as hav­ing an ex­treme­ly bad pe­ri­od,” Ben­jamin said.

He high­light­ed that the na­tion­al mur­der toll cur­rent­ly stands at 299 for the year, with Oc­to­ber 2025 record­ing 28 homi­cides, slight­ly above Oc­to­ber 2024’s 27. How­ev­er, the fig­ure re­mains well be­low 501 mur­ders record­ed dur­ing the same pe­ri­od last year.

“The mur­der toll has re­mained well down­wards of last year’s fig­ure due on­ly to the hard work of the po­lice,” he said.

Ben­jamin as­sured the pub­lic that po­lice are analysing crime trends and re­fin­ing mea­sures to ad­dress the uptick.

“We will not be daunt­ed and we will con­tin­ue to do what we need to do to deal with the mat­ter,” he stat­ed.

When asked about a pos­si­ble ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency or the in­tro­duc­tion of a cur­few, Ben­jamin de­ferred to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, who could not be reached for com­ment.

Trends and pub­lic co­op­er­a­tion

Ben­jamin not­ed that sea­son­al in­creas­es in mur­ders are ex­pect­ed, cit­ing his­tor­i­cal trends af­ter Ju­ly.

“We were al­ready an­tic­i­pat­ing that there would be an in­crease, and we have so far been able to stymie that up-tick. So when up-ticks oc­cur now, it is noth­ing shock­ing for us as we were ex­pect­ing that,” he said.

The act­ing CoP al­so called on the pub­lic to con­tin­ue sup­port­ing the TTPS by re­port­ing il­le­gal guns and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, re­in­forc­ing the 41 per cent de­cline in mur­ders achieved so far.

“The pub­lic’s co­op­er­a­tion is cru­cial. We need to work to­geth­er to make Trinidad and To­ba­go safer,” Ben­jamin con­clud­ed.