Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

This week­end turned in­to a bloody one as po­lice record­ed five deaths, five of which were mur­ders, one in­volved death al­leged­ly by po­lice of­fi­cers and sev­er­al oth­ers shot and wound­ed in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents through­out T&T.

Yes­ter­day around 4 am, in Barataria with the quick re­sponse by of­fi­cers of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, six Trinida­di­ans, among them two women and two Venezue­lans were caught red-hand­ed by po­lice at­tempt­ing to rob the own­er and oc­cu­pants of the Hap­pi­ness Su­per­mar­ket at the cor­ner of the East­ern Main Road, and Sixth Av­enue. 

Po­lice said of­fi­cers of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, Barataria, and Mor­vant Po­lice Sta­tion pre­vent­ed the sus­pects from es­cap­ing from su­per­mar­ket.

It was re­port­ed that six men and two women, armed with knives and cut­lass­es, en­tered the su­per­mar­ket and pro­ceed­ed to the up­per floor of the build­ing where the own­er and eight em­ploy­ees, all Chi­nese na­tion­als, were asleep. 

The sus­pects at­tempt­ed to rob the oc­cu­pants but a strug­gle en­sued dur­ing which sev­er­al peo­ple were stabbed and chopped, in­clud­ing one of the Chi­nese na­tion­als whose name was not re­leased to the me­dia up to late yes­ter­day.

A re­port was made to the po­lice who re­spond­ed with­in min­utes and caught the eight sus­pects red-hand­ed.

The po­lice of­fi­cers found sev­er­al per­sons suf­fer­ing from in­juries. 

The Chi­nese na­tion­al suf­fered se­ri­ous in­juries and was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal where he died. 

Some of the sus­pects were al­so in­jured in the melee and had to be treat­ed at hos­pi­tal.

Po­lice said noth­ing was stolen from the su­per­mar­ket. 

The lo­cal sus­pects live at Mor­vant, Laven­tille, and Bel­mont.

Po­lice are al­so check­ing the le­gal sta­tus of the two Venezue­lans. In­ves­ti­ga­tors are to fo­cus on mur­der and at­tempt­ed rob­bery.

On Sat­ur­day, at about 8.25 pm at Thrush Lane in Mal­oney Gar­dens, a group of peo­ple who was play­ing cards at the side of the road were shot at by gun­men who pulled up in a sil­ver Nis­san. 

The car then drove off. Po­lice said four men were shot and wound­ed and con­veyed to the hos­pi­tal.

On ar­rival, one of the vic­tims iden­ti­fied as foot­baller Nathan Julien 28,  of Flamin­go Boule­vard, was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival at the hos­pi­tal.

Julien played for the T&T Prison Ser­vice. In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse to his mur­der, the Prison Ser­vice ex­pressed shock and sad­ness over the news of his death.

Julien was a mem­ber of the Prison Ser­vice foot­ball club since 2017 and al­so copped the 2019 T&T Su­per League and club’s top goal scor­er ti­tle.

He was de­scribed as a play­er whose “pres­ence on the field was dom­i­nat­ing and im­pact­ful.  A hum­ble and dis­ci­plined in­di­vid­ual, Julien was well loved and ad­mired by all who knew him, in­clud­ing op­po­nents.”

The Prison Ser­vice con­demned the ac­tions of the mis­cre­ants and crim­i­nals “who con­tin­ue to de­prive the na­tion of tal­ent­ed and promis­ing young in­di­vid­u­als and pre­vent­ing them from reach­ing their full po­ten­tial.”

“Whilst we strug­gle to come to terms with Julien’s pass­ing, our deep­est and sin­cer­est con­do­lences go out to his fam­i­ly and friends and we par­ty for added strength and com­fort dur­ing this ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od. May he rest in eter­nal peace,” the state­ment from the Prison Ser­vice said.

Al­so, on Sat­ur­day at about 8.30 pm a man from Mar­aval was shot and wound­ed dur­ing a dri­ve-by shoot­ing at Boodoo Av­enue.

Po­lice said the man was with a group of friends when a white  Nis­san Wingroad pulled up and two men ex­it­ed open­ing fire on the group.

The sus­pects then got back in­to the ve­hi­cle and es­caped.

One man was shot and wound­ed and was sub­se­quent­ly tak­en to hos­pi­tal for med­ical treat­ment. 

About 30 min­utes af­ter in To­ba­go, at about 9 pm a man was shot and wound­ed in an­oth­er dri­ve-by shoot­ing in the vicin­i­ty of Mil­ford Road, Crown Point. The vic­tim is said to be list­ed in a se­ri­ous con­di­tion at hos­pi­tal.

In an­oth­er in­ci­dent, al­so on Sat­ur­day, at about 5.30 pm two broth­ers—ages 28 and 22 were shot and wound­ed while lim­ing near their home at Aboud Cir­cu­lar in St James. 

Po­lice said one for the men was shot in the arm while his sib­ling was shot in the leg.

On Fri­day, a 30-year-old man from St Joseph was killed dur­ing an al­leged po­lice in­volved shoot­ing in San Juan.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­port, of­fi­cers were on mo­bile pa­trol at about 4.10 pm when they in­ter­cept­ed a white Nis­san B12 mo­tor ve­hi­cle with a lone male oc­cu­pant.

The re­port said as the of­fi­cers at­tempt­ed to ap­proach the man, he opened fire on them forc­ing them to re­turn fire. The dri­ver, po­lice said, man­aged to speed off. The of­fi­cers gave chase, how­ev­er, as the ve­hi­cle turned west along the East­ern Main Road, of­fi­cers from the North East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force who were near­by saw what was tak­ing place and at­tempt­ed to in­ter­rupt the ve­hi­cle.

Po­lice said the ve­hi­cle ac­cel­er­at­ed in the di­rec­tion of one of the of­fi­cers, who drew his firearm and point­ed it at the dri­ver and opened fire.

The ve­hi­cle crashed in­to an­oth­er ve­hi­cle along Third Av­enue.

The sus­pect was held by the po­lice of­fi­cers and be­ing wound­ed he was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex where he lat­er died.

The sus­pect was iden­ti­fied as An­ton Grant of Mara­cas, St Joseph.