SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

 The far-flung com­mu­ni­ty of Blan­chisseuse has been a place of re­lax­ation, en­joy­ment and leisure for vis­i­tors, tourists and res­i­dents. This small rur­al dis­trict along the North Coast, known for its beau­ti­ful beach­es, invit­ing wa­ter­falls and breath­tak­ing na­ture trails, has gone from what res­i­dents de­scribed as "a par­adise" to a “bat­tle zone" fol­low­ing three mur­ders in the last five weeks. From Feb­ru­ary 2021 to now, the peace­ful com­mu­ni­ty has been rocked with sev­en mur­ders–one of which was po­lice re­lat­ed.

For­mer Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Sing said it would ap­pear that “rem­nants or af­fil­i­ates” of the well-known drug lord and gang leader Vaughn “Sand­man” Mieres who was am­bushed and killed at his Las Cuevas home in 2019 are seek­ing to es­tab­lish them­selves in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Lee Sing owns a house in Blan­chisseuse which is 24 miles from Ari­ma.

In the last year, Lee Sing said, res­i­dents be­gan speak­ing to him “in hushed tones” about Sand­man’s af­fil­i­ates mak­ing their pres­ence felt in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“They (res­i­dents) com­mu­ni­cate with me in con­fi­dence,” said Lee Sing who is an ac­tive mem­ber of the Blan­chisseuse Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil (BCC).

At the time of Sand­man’s as­sas­si­na­tion, Lee Sing said the re­put­ed gun and drugs run­ner owned a fleet of boats and had ac­cess to the Gulf of Paria and Latin Amer­i­ca.

“What is hap­pen­ing now is that these mem­bers are seek­ing to re-es­tab­lish them­selves. It means that the is­sue of guns will be­come a se­ri­ous prob­lem for all of us on the North Coast.”

Lee Sing said the mem­bers are now com­ing out of the wood­work.

“But they have been re-en­gi­neer­ing. It’s any­body’s guess, how pow­er­ful they are now.”

He said the Blan­chisseuse Po­lice Sta­tion lacks man­pow­er re­sources and ve­hi­cles to cov­er com­mu­ni­ties along the North Coast stretch which spans as far as Bras­so Seco.

“It tells you their think­ing is still flawed,” Lee Sing said.

Lee Sing, who re­signed from the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment in 2015, said crime and gun vi­o­lence were now on their doorsteps.

Of the six homi­cides in the dis­trict, Lee Sing said there were two dou­ble mur­ders while fine arts deal­er Mark Pereira was killed in­side his va­ca­tion home at Paria Main Road last De­cem­ber. The po­lice have made no ar­rests with re­spect to these killings.

One res­i­dent, who with­held his name, said he sus­pect­ed that a small gang had been formed.

"One of the men in the gang is re­lat­ed to a known Sixx boss in Laven­tille," he said.

At the top of a stair­case at Up­per O’Con­nor Street "ABG"  and "6 and 9" were bold­ly paint­ed in white on two walls.

ABG means "Any­body can get it” while the num­bers are as­so­ci­at­ed with rebel groups.

On Mon­day, when the Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed the com­mu­ni­ty, sev­er­al res­i­dents who spoke about the killings re­fused to give their names or be pho­tographed for fear of be­ing tar­get­ed.

 "Things are spin­ning out of con­trol. Every­one is still in shock and dis­be­lief," one fe­male res­i­dent said as she walked up Recre­ation­al Road, less than 100 me­tres from where Mitchell Evan­ge­list, 31, and Nigel Dedi­er, 51, were sprayed with bul­lets while on a con­struc­tion site on Jan­u­ary 27.

On Mon­day, then act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher stat­ed in a press re­lease that the mur­ders of the men "were as a re­sult of dis­putes be­tween com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers."

The top cop al­so gave the as­sur­ance that in­ves­ti­ga­tors are work­ing fever­ish­ly on the ground to bring the per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice.

Hours af­ter the re­lease, gun­men opened fire at a house on O’Con­nor Street.

Luck­i­ly no one was killed or in­jured.

"You're in­doors and you would hear rapid gun­fire. This place was nev­er so. Blan­chisseuse was like a par­adise. You nev­er had to wor­ry about gun­men or look over your shoul­der be­cause it was safe. Now it’s like a bat­tle zone," the res­i­dent said.

 She said gone are the days when vil­lagers could have left their doors open while they at­tend to their chores, watch tele­vi­sion or go to a near­by shop.

“Now you have to stay in­side. By 6 pm every­one is in­side their house. What kind of life is that? They are re­strict­ing your move­ment be­cause of fear of the gun.”

An­oth­er vil­lager said that fol­low­ing Pereira's mur­der a con­tin­gent of sol­diers camped out on the up­per lev­el of the Blan­chisseuse Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre for a few days of the week to throw an eye on the vil­lage.

"The sol­diers would do foot pa­trols in the night while the po­lice are seen dri­ving around in their ve­hi­cles. But their pres­ence has not been dis­suad­ing these gun­men who come on foot and shoot to kill.”

Speak­ing be­hind his prop­er­ty at Beach Front Road, an el­der­ly vil­lager said the mur­ders have been giv­ing the com­mu­ni­ty a bad name and af­fect­ing busi­ness.

“Blan­chisseuse is now blem­ished with gun vi­o­lence. It’s sad to see what we have be­come.”

At La­gu­na Mar Beach Ho­tel, the op­er­a­tor ad­mit­ted that even though his prop­er­ty has been giv­en a re­cent facelift and is un­der new man­age­ment busi­ness has been strug­gling.

He said that he had hoped for his six apart­ments to be booked for Car­ni­val, but guests have ex­pressed an in­ter­est as a re­sult of the mur­ders.

“I have on­ly been here four months and there have been three mur­ders. Mark Pereira’s mur­der jolt­ed me. It was the last thing I ex­pect­ed. It will af­fect busi­ness, no doubt about it.”

The killings, he ad­mit­ted, have him un­easy.

In the com­ing days, the op­er­a­tor said he in­tends to in­vest in two rot­tweil­er dogs and a fence to safe­guard his guests and him­self.

At Wil­son Street, an­oth­er res­i­dent said if Sand­man was alive, Blan­chisseuse would not have had all these killings.

"Sand­man would have put a stop to that long time.”

Lynette Evan­ge­list,72, of O'Con­nor Street re­fut­ed al­le­ga­tions that her grand­son Mitchell Evan­ge­list was mur­dered as a re­sult of gang af­fil­i­a­tion.

"My grand­son was not in­volved in any gang. I could put my head on a block for that," she in­sist­ed.

In the last two years, Evan­ge­list has lost three grand­sons–two of whom died of gun­shot wounds.

The first was Sher­win Ma­haraj in Feb­ru­ary 2021 who was sprayed with bul­lets a stone's throw from his home.

Her sec­ond grand­son died mys­te­ri­ous­ly.

"Mitchell is the third. Lord, when will it end? Who is next?"

Mitchell and Sher­win were broth­ers.

Five of the mur­dered vic­tims ei­ther lived or were killed on O'Con­nor Street which has be­come a known hot spot in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Evan­ge­list said her grand­sons' mur­ders stemmed from an on­go­ing land war among fam­i­ly.

“We have been threat­ened and the Blan­chisseuse po­lice have failed to act.”

The pen­sion­er said wit­ness­es are al­so afraid to come for­ward.

“Peo­ple are stay­ing qui­et be­cause they are scared. Al­though I have se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras, I still don't feel safe. I am liv­ing on the edge. My sur­viv­ing grand­chil­dren don't want to stay here. They are telling me to sell my house and leave Trinidad."

Alphon­sia Joyeau Lewis of Et­ti­enne Street said men were hold­ing guns like cell phones in their hands.

"Blan­chisseuse was not so. Guns and gun vi­o­lence were nev­er part of this com­mu­ni­ty. Every­one lived as a fam­i­ly and looked out for one an­oth­er. Now If I have a dog, I don't want it to come here be­cause the place is not nice any­more.”

Lewis said Blan­chisseuse is with­in prox­im­i­ty of the beach­front where il­le­gal guns can eas­i­ly en­ter.

“Here re­al­ly change. This is not the Blan­chisseuse I know and grew up in. Boy, Blan­chisseuse name drag­ging through the mud."

Pres­i­dent of the BCC Sharon De­bisette in a tele­phone in­ter­view on Thurs­day said the coun­cil was yet to hold a meet­ing with the res­i­dents.

She ad­mit­ted the com­mu­ni­ty had ex­pe­ri­enced “a cou­ple of in­ci­dents” which the po­lice and sol­diers have been deal­ing with.

Sun­day Guardian al­so reached out to the head of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Mervyn Ed­wards who said he need­ed to get da­ta from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice to de­ter­mine how many mur­ders oc­curred in the com­mu­ni­ty in the last two years, as he was re­cent­ly put in charge of the di­vi­sion and ad­vised that we call him back.

He al­so promised to hold a town meet­ing with the res­i­dents soon.

How­ev­er, Ed­wards lat­er in­di­cat­ed that he had a death in the fam­i­ly and was un­abe to com­ment at the time.

A What­sApp mes­sage was al­so sent to Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, but she did not re­spond.

BOX

Mur­der vic­tims:

Feb­ru­ary 2021-Sher­win Ma­haraj

Sep­tem­ber 2021-Clive Joseph and Cervin Bris­tol

De­cem­ber 2022-Mark Pereira

Jan­u­ary 2023-Mitchell Evan­ge­list and Nigel Dedi­er

Po­lice-re­lat­ed killing:

Ju­ly 2022-Meschach Gib­son