Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

The mur­der toll for 2022 has now crossed 500 af­ter the coun­try record­ed four more killings be­tween Fri­day night and yes­ter­day. A dou­ble mur­der at a ceme­tery in Tu­na­puna yes­ter­day morn­ing, a killing in Mor­vant yes­ter­day morn­ing and one in En­ter­prise on Fri­day night brought the toll to 501 up to late yes­ter­day.

Two broth­ers, Nir­mal Ram­baran, 18, and Elvis Her­nan­dez, 28, from Prescott Lane, Tu­na­puna, were shot dead at the Streatham Lodge Pub­lic Ceme­tery at 10.20 am by gun­men who opened fire on them af­ter an al­ter­ca­tion. A third man was rushed to hos­pi­tal af­ter be­ing in­jured in the shoot­ing.

The fa­ther of the mur­der vic­tims, Dals­ingh Ram­baran told the Sun­day Guardian that he was at home when he re­ceived the news that his sons were killed.

"I thought they were shot in the leg, but I didn’t know they were dead. They had an ar­gu­ment with some fel­lows, but I don’t know where they are from. Af­ter the ar­gu­ment, the fel­lows re­turned in a car and jumped out. Three were shot and one is in the hos­pi­tal. One is a mar­ket ven­dor who took a day to clean the ceme­tery. The next son, Elvis came to lime with his broth­er. None of my sons gave any trou­ble.

"This coun­try is in trou­ble. I wish my fam­i­ly and I could leave the coun­try," a dis­traught Ram­baran said.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, the third vic­tim who is in the hos­pi­tal gave them crit­i­cal in­for­ma­tion and in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.

Dalsingh and Yvette Rambaran, parents of Nirmal and Elvis who were shot dead at the Streatham Lodge Public Cemetery in Tunapuna yesterday, console each other.

ANISTO ALVES

On Fri­day night, a 26-year-old fa­ther of two, Roger Charles was gunned down at Crown Trace, En­ter­prise.

Po­lice are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to that mur­der.

At 1.30 am yes­ter­day, 47-year-old Noel Fer­min, of Mon Re­pos Road, Mor­vant, who was shot, was tak­en to hos­pi­tal where he suc­cumbed to in­juries. Po­lice sources said that the facts of that mur­der are still sketchy and in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.

Acting Commissioner of Police McDonald Jacob.

ROBERTO CODALLO

'A lot of of­fi­cers de­spon­dent'

Ag Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia called on the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to "not give up the fight" al­though the mur­der rate has crossed 500 for the year.

"The ex­ec­u­tive of the TTPS is very con­cerned with the num­ber of mur­ders we are hav­ing with­in the streets and com­mu­ni­ties. We have now reached 500 mur­ders for the year so far with two more months for the year.

"I want to plead with my di­vi­sion­al com­man­ders who are in com­mand of their di­vi­sions and their spaces with streets and com­mu­ni­ties to pro­vide prop­er ser­vice to our cus­tomers. I plead with them to re­main re­silient. A lot of them who are mak­ing an ef­fort are de­spon­dent at this time as they see the mur­ders in some di­vi­sions dou­bled and even tripled. De­spite the re­cov­ery of firearms and the ar­rest of per­sons. I don’t want them as we reach 500 mur­ders to give up the fight. I have to re­main re­silient."

He as­sured the pub­lic that they will con­tin­ue to im­ple­ment the strate­gies that they have de­vel­oped to fight crim­i­nals.  The CoP asked crit­ics not to be so neg­a­tive and to give the hard-work­ing po­lice of­fi­cers a chance.

"Ral­ly around our di­vi­sion­al com­man­ders. Give them en­cour­age­ment to keep up the fight. See some­thing say some­thing. Hear some­thing, say some­thing. Those sub­ma­chine guns that are pro­lif­er­at­ing our streets and com­mu­ni­ties and falling in­to the wrong hands of mis­cre­ants...We have re­cov­ered 102 of these sub­ma­chine guns which are au­to­mat­ic ri­fles. It’s a record be­cause the av­er­age over the last few years has been 66 per year. We have al­ready seized 102 sub­ma­chine guns out of the 580 firearms that are seized."

He said in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, ob­tain­ing firearms was big busi­ness as pur­chas­ing an AK 47 or an AR 15 is be­tween $40,000 to $45,000, while a re­volver is around $12,000.

"Some­body abroad is mak­ing a hand­some amount of prof­its by send­ing these to T&T."

Ja­cob said that the fail­ure of the Bail Bill in Par­lia­ment was hav­ing an ef­fect on some peo­ple as if they com­mit mur­der they can get bail.

"Our crim­i­nol­o­gists have done stud­ies from oth­er coun­tries that show the ef­fect of this. We need the sup­port from oth­er ac­tors in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem."

_With re­port­ing by Anis­to Alves