Two men were killed in separate shootings in Penal and Pleasantville on Wednesday night, leaving families in mourning and police searching for gunmen.
Homicide investigators said around 9.20 pm, gunfire shattered the quiet at Big G One Stop Shop along the Penal Rock Road, where Kevin Ryan, 46, was gunned down inside his own establishment. Ryan lived at the same address as his business.
Police said Ryan had just returned from buying food when a man dressed in an orange coverall and a dark ski mask stormed into the shop. The gunman, described as slim-built, six-foot-one, and armed with a firearm, pointed it at Ryan and fired a single shot to his chest.
Ryan stumbled into the kitchen at the back of the shop, where he collapsed and died. The assailant ran off along Penal Rock Road.
When police arrived minutes later, they found Ryan lying on his back. He was already dead. The scene was cordoned off, photographed, and examined by crime scene investigators, but police reported recovering no items of evidential value.
While Penal police were processing that crime scene, officers in San Fernando were called to another shooting just miles away. Around 8.40 pm, at a market shed on the corner of Blitz Avenue and Pleasantville Terrace in Blitz Village, a gunman opened fire on 45-year-old Damian Pierre.
Police said Pierre was sitting with a group when a man approached and unleashed several rounds before running off. Witnesses rushed Pierre into a black Nissan Note and drove him to the San Fernando General Hospital.
Doctors tried to resuscitate him but pronounced him dead at 9.20 pm. He sustained multiple gunshot wounds to the neck and chest. At the crime scene, investigators recovered six spent 9mm casings marked “CBC Luger.” Bloodstains around the shed told the story of Pierre’s final moments before he was taken away.
Both crime scenes were cordoned off and examined by the Homicide Bureau of Investigations and divisional crime scene units. Investigators said no arrests had been made up to late yesterday evening.
