Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardain.co.tt

Days af­ter his re­lease from de­ten­tion un­der the State of Emer­gency (SoE), 43-year-old Shum­ba James, a man la­belled by po­lice as a no­to­ri­ous gang­ster, was killed in an al­leged shootout with of­fi­cers in his home­town of St Mary’s Vil­lage, Moru­ga, yes­ter­day. His friend, 34-year-old Visham Ryan Lochan, was al­so killed in the in­ci­dent.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, James was seat­ed in the front pas­sen­ger seat of Lochan’s Nis­san Ti­i­da trav­el­ling along Moru­ga Road when the in­ci­dent hap­pened. South/Cen­tral ACP Wayne Mys­tar said some­time af­ter 10 am, there was a shootout with the po­lice which re­sult­ed in both men be­ing fa­tal­ly wound­ed.

The po­lice trans­port­ed the men to the Princes Town Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where they were pro­nounced dead. Mys­tar of­fered no fur­ther de­tails, on­ly con­firm­ing of­fi­cers re­cov­ered two pis­tols.

How­ev­er, rel­a­tives of both men are claim­ing the duo was ex­e­cut­ed.

James, a for­mer state wit­ness in the high-pro­file case in which his ex-girl­friend was killed by po­lice in 2011, was the first per­son ar­rest­ed via a de­ten­tion or­der dat­ed Jan­u­ary 12 un­der the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed SoE.

James was al­so the first per­son de­tained un­der the re­cent SoE. His ar­rest was or­dered by then-Min­is­ter of na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds on Jan­u­ary 12. A gazetted le­gal no­tice said the or­der was is­sued as James has been iden­ti­fied as a cred­i­ble sus­pect in var­i­ous il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing plan­ning tar­get­ed killings of in­di­vid­u­als as­sist­ing the po­lice in their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

The de­ten­tion was deemed nec­es­sary to pre­vent James from act­ing in a man­ner prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty and or­der.

The SoE was de­clared on De­cem­ber 30 and end­ed on April 13.

His fa­ther, Frank Gill, yes­ter­day told re­porters James had cast his bal­lot as a spe­cial vot­er in the Moru­ga/Table­land con­stituen­cy and was re­turn­ing home when he was killed.

Speak­ing to re­porters at the scene, which was still cor­doned off as the bul­let-rid­dled ve­hi­cle was there, Gill claimed the po­lice ex­e­cut­ed his son.

“They kill him be­cause he votes UNC,” claimed Gill.

De­spite his son’s crim­i­nal back­ground, Gill de­scribed James as a good per­son and dis­missed al­le­ga­tions against him as “talk.” He said he was in his gar­den yes­ter­day when James’ moth­er called him, cry­ing as she broke the news.

Gill al­so claimed that up­on ar­riv­ing at the scene, the po­lice threat­ened his life.

“They said that I was next, and told me my chil­dren were pests,” he said.

Trag­i­cal­ly, three of Gill’s oth­er sons were al­so killed. In 2005, Lester James was killed by po­lice dur­ing an al­leged shootout in St Mary’s Vil­lage, where $3 mil­lion worth of co­caine and mar­i­jua­na was al­so seized. Two years lat­er, Ita­lo James was shot dead at Si­mon Trace. Last year, an­oth­er son, Oba Gill, was shot to death in Moru­ga. Gill him­self was charged with the mur­der, though he was ac­quit­ted in 2018.

Shum­ba James had been a key wit­ness in the State’s failed case against six po­lice of­fi­cers ac­cused in the 2011 fa­tal shoot­ing of his girl­friend Alana Dun­can, and her two friends, Abi­gail John­son and Ker­ron “Fin­gers” Ec­cles, in Bar­rack­pore.

Po­lice said his crim­i­nal record showed at least 19 charges be­tween 2012 and 2022, in­clud­ing at­tempt­ed mur­der and firearm-re­lat­ed of­fences.

Mean­while, Lochan’s rel­a­tives al­so in­sist­ed he was ex­e­cut­ed and are call­ing for a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“Peo­ple on the road are say­ing that their hands were out of the ve­hi­cle. It was like an ex­e­cu­tion,” said his un­cle-in-law Fa­zo­ol Mo­hammed.

De­scrib­ing Lochan as a hard-work­ing man and de­vot­ed fa­ther to his three-year-old son, the rel­a­tive added, “He goes to work, comes back home and sees about his son.”

Lochan, a pip­efit­ter, al­so worked in the fam­i­ly’s egg and plant busi­ness.

“I do not know him as a gun­man or a Bad­john. He is a qui­et and lov­ing man,” he said.

Mo­hammed, a child­hood friend of James, ex­pressed sor­row over his death.

“He was a good man to me.”

Mo­hammed said will be de­mand­ing an­swers from the po­lice, though he was not op­ti­mistic.

“Look where they stopped them, they know there is no cam­era there so no one can re­spond about this,” he claimed.

Re­fer­ring back to the 2011 triple killing, he al­leged the po­lice meant to kill James then.

Mean­while, Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty di­rec­tor David West yes­ter­day said he was un­aware of any for­mal com­plaint from the fam­i­lies but en­cour­aged any­one with rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion to come for­ward. West al­so con­firmed that so far this year, there have been 23 fa­tal po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing in­ci­dents re­sult­ing in 33 deaths.