RALPH BAN­WARIE

and KEVON FELMINE

In­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers are yet to make a break­through in­to Thurs­day’s blood­bath in the Heights of Gua­napo in Ari­ma, where four chil­dren were killed while asleep at their home.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, po­lice sources said they have had no suc­cess yet in mak­ing any ar­rests and es­tab­lish­ing a mo­tive for the killings.

When con­tact­ed, DCP Kurt Si­mon said, “We are do­ing things that are bear­ing some fruit, but this is the na­ture of in­ves­ti­ga­tions.”

Mean­while, the au­top­sies are ex­pect­ed to be con­duct­ed at the T&T Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre on Wednes­day.

Just af­ter mid­night on Thurs­day, tragedy struck the Pe­terkin fam­i­ly and the com­mu­ni­ty of Gua­napo when nine peo­ple were shot by armed gun­men. They were all shot while asleep.

The four killed were iden­ti­fied as Faith Pe­terkin, ten; Ar­i­an­na Pe­terkin, 14; Shane Pe­terkin, 17, and Tiffany Pe­terkin, 19.

Those in­jured were Idris Craw­ford, 17, Jami­ah Craw­ford, 14, Chris­t­ian Stephen, 18, Sheni­ka Pe­terkin, 21, and Ja­son Mo­hammed, 25.

Res­i­dents are now forced to re­main in­doors for fear of the crim­i­nal el­e­ments. How­ev­er, they feel a bit safe with the reg­u­lar joint po­lice and army pa­trols in the area.

Anisa Mo­hammed, the dis­traught moth­er, said that her four chil­dren who were killed were in­no­cent.

Some res­i­dents are con­tem­plat­ing mov­ing out of the area.

Hinds wants case study on the mur­ders

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds, mean­while, is call­ing on his Cab­i­net col­leagues to join him in a case study to un­earth what cir­cum­stances led to Thurs­day’s grue­some mur­ders in the Heights of Gua­napo.

Hinds spoke to jour­nal­ists as he par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Sal Tar­rae Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Foun­da­tion’s (STS­DF) an­ti-crime march in La Brea yes­ter­day. Hinds said he felt oblig­ed to at­tend as the com­mu­ni­ty was not just talk­ing about crime but tak­ing a stand by ed­u­cat­ing peo­ple. Hinds called on the Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, Don­na Cox; Min­is­ter of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Sham­fa Cud­joe; Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice, Fos­ter Cum­mings, to join him in a case study, say­ing there must be a big sto­ry be­hind the mur­ders and that the re­sults might not be pleas­ant.

“But cer­tain­ly, to have re­sult­ed in the more than trag­ic re­sult where four chil­dren, in­clud­ing a ten year old, would have lost their lives in the cir­cum­stances we are now fa­mil­iar with, there has to be a sto­ry. There has to be some so­cial and oth­er cir­cum­stances that, all com­ing to­geth­er, have re­sult­ed in that,” Hinds said.

Hinds de­scribed the mur­ders as heinous, un­bear­able, in­tol­er­a­ble, nasty, and mur­der­ous and prayed that the po­lice would solve them.

He said he was con­fi­dent po­lice were di­rect­ing time and re­sources to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and mak­ing progress. Hinds said no one can de­ny that T&T has op­por­tu­ni­ties for every­one, in­clud­ing sports, busi­ness, aca­d­e­mics, re­li­gion, and en­tre­pre­neur­ship. He said when he sees crime oc­cur­ring, he re­flects on those op­por­tu­ni­ties and sees it un­nec­es­sary for peo­ple to thief, rob, rape, and mur­der or be cor­rupt peo­ple to suc­ceed.

“You do not have to thief, rob, rape, ar­son, and mur­der to suc­ceed in T&T. You do not have to be cor­rupt be­cause white-col­lar crime is al­so part of our prob­lem. You do not have to do all of that be­cause op­por­tu­ni­ties are here, and no one can chal­lenge me on that fact, and it is not nec­es­sary to have to kill to get food.”

He said bail was a vex­ing ques­tion in law en­force­ment as of­fi­cers com­plained there are too many in­stances where peo­ple com­mit griev­ous crimes and get bail and re­turn to the streets to com­mit crimes.

“You saw a few hours ago, re­port­ed in the pa­per, one man on bail for a mur­der charge, now caught with guns. God knows what he was about to do to them or could have done or have. I do not want to com­ment too much on the in­di­vid­ual case, but he got bail for that as well, and the courts in our con­sti­tu­tion­al arrange­ment guards, very jeal­ous­ly, its right to deal with the is­sue of bail.”

Hinds said that even with leg­is­la­tion, the court con­strues those de­ci­sions are for the ju­di­cia­ry, and he ac­cepts it. He said de­lays in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem were rea­sons peo­ple have suc­cess­ful bail ap­pli­ca­tions. Hinds said the Gov­ern­ment was work­ing to quick­en the sys­tem.