sto­ries by An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Pupils of the Gloster Lodge Mora­vian Pri­ma­ry School in Port-of-Spain scam­pered for safe­ty un­der their desks yes­ter­day, as gun­fire erupt­ed out­side the school when a man was killed.

The fam­i­ly of the mur­dered man al­so sought cov­er, un­aware he had been gunned down out­side their gate, close to the school.

Amoa Howe, 50, was shot mul­ti­ple times at 9.10 am and died on the road in front of his par­ents’ house.

At least 25 spent shell cas­ings were col­lect­ed at the scene, while a sin­gle cas­ing was found in the school’s front yard.

Class­es at the school were dis­missed just be­fore mid­day.

Hours af­ter the shoot­ing, which left pupils and teach­ers trau­ma­tised, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly con­firmed the school will re­main closed to­day.

Of­fi­cials from the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion are al­so ex­pect­ed to pro­vide coun­selling to­mor­row.

Howe, a fa­ther of five, came face-to-face with two gun­men as he walked to his house af­ter re­port­ed­ly drop­ping off two of his chil­dren at a school out­side Bel­mont.

It is re­port­ed the gun­men were in a sil­ver car which came from “over the hill” and stopped in front of Howe, as he moved to the side to al­low them to pass.

Two gun­men al­leged­ly emerged from the car and opened fire on Howe, who col­lapsed on the road.

The gun­men’s car was found aban­doned near­by al­most an hour lat­er.

As news of the killing spread, res­i­dents rushed to the scene, hop­ing to catch a glimpse of the body, which re­mained un­cov­ered for al­most two hours.

Some peo­ple begged the of­fi­cers present to cov­er the bloody corpse, as it was vis­i­ble to the pupils and staff at the school.

School of­fi­cials said as soon as the shoot­ing be­gan, the prin­ci­pal con­vened an as­sem­bly on the sec­ond floor, but some pupils were still able to see Howe’s bleed­ing body on the road, which caused scream­ing and cry­ing from some pupils and staff mem­bers.

One teacher said, “It was hor­ri­ble. We were all on the floor and we had to calm the stu­dents even though we were scared too.”

A se­nior teacher, who is al­so a pas­tor, used the school’s pub­lic ad­dress sys­tem to pray with the staff and pupils.

The de­ceased man’s un­cle, Ray Howe, told Guardian Me­dia, “He maybe had his dif­fer­ent ways of do­ing things, you know, but oth­er­wise he was re­al cool and hum­ble.”

De­scrib­ing the crime sit­u­a­tion as ter­ri­ble, 78-year-old Ray agreed the killing would bring reper­cus­sions for the com­mu­ni­ty.

Bel­mont com­mu­ni­ty plunged in­to grief

Al­though law­men la­belled the killing as gang-re­lat­ed, res­i­dents, along with friends and fam­i­ly, re­fused to ac­cept this, as they claimed Howe had one of the biggest hearts around and took ex­tra care to pro­vide for the less for­tu­nate in the com­mu­ni­ty.

One woman who de­clined to give her name, cried open­ly, say­ing, “He would al­ways make sure we had some­thing to eat. Even when I couldn’t send my chil­dren to school, he would han­dle me. I don’t care what peo­ple say about him, he was good to so many peo­ple up here and we will suf­fer now.”

An­oth­er nod­ded her head in agree­ment, “He was a nice fel­la and he was al­ways there for us.”

An el­der­ly male res­i­dent from Darceuil Lane, who claimed to have known Howe since birth, said, “He might have had his ways, but he was a man who did a lot of good for the peo­ple around here.”

A close friend of Howe’s told Guardian Me­dia, “He is not an ar­ro­gant per­son who could be found lim­ing on the block, smok­ing weed or curs­ing.”

He claimed Howe was a busi­ness­man who en­joyed ex­clu­sive par­ties and helped the less for­tu­nate.

An­gry over the killing and sub­se­quent lack of ac­tion by at­tend­ing of­fi­cers, Ja­son De Sil­va ques­tioned why it took so long to cov­er Howe’s body, which was in full view of the staff and pupils at the school.

Point­ing to the nu­mer­ous marked and un­marked po­lice ve­hi­cles at the scene, he called on Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher to an­swer per­ti­nent ques­tions.

“How long again will the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice be al­lowed to work a ghost gang on tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey be­cause of friends in high places?” he asked.

De Sil­va said the pub­lic needs to wake up and re­alise what is hap­pen­ing, as he said cor­rupt of­fi­cers con­tin­ued to flood the ser­vice.

“You can­not clean white tiles with a dirty mop,” he added.

Anx­ious par­ents rush to col­lect chil­dren

Anx­ious as he wait­ed to col­lect his two grand­chil­dren, aged nine and sev­en, from school around 9.27 am fol­low­ing the shoot­ing, Ju­nior Thomas said the gun vi­o­lence had brought back mem­o­ries of the loss he suf­fered six years ago when his son was killed in sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances.

He told Guardian Me­dia, “It’s not nice. What hurt­ing me is that it was by the school. What would have hap­pened if it had chil­dren in the school­yard?”

Watch­ing the clock, as he was due to re­port to work at noon, Thomas said, “All I want to do is col­lect my grand­chil­dren and make sure and put them some­where safe that they’re okay while I am at work.”

Orig­i­nal­ly from To­ba­go and now liv­ing in Gon­za­les, he de­scribed the crime sit­u­a­tion as “scary” and “fun­ny”.

He ad­mit­ted hav­ing to watch his back now as he lived in a war­ring area, but re­mained com­mit­ted to help­ing his daugh­ter with her chil­dren.

He pre­dict­ed, “This ain’t done, it will have more to come.”

The moth­er of a sev­en-year-old boy who is in Sec­ond Year, said her heart dropped af­ter re­ceiv­ing a call about the shoot­ing.

Re­veal­ing she had been act­ing on au­to-pi­lot as she gath­ered her things and in­formed her su­per­vi­sor that she had to leave im­me­di­ate­ly, the anx­ious woman said she was wor­ried as two oth­er young rel­a­tives al­so at­tend­ed the school.

She said her son, who she dropped off at the school around 7.30 am, was epilep­tic and suf­fers seizures, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing sleep.

As a re­sult of the trau­ma, she said, “I will have to mon­i­tor him as the shock could bring on an episode, you nev­er know what could hap­pen. He could wake up in the hos­pi­tal to­mor­row (to­day).”

Ready to trans­fer her son from the school, the dis­traught woman said she would be speak­ing with rel­a­tives in an at­tempt to con­vince them that a move out of the area would be in every­one’s best in­ter­est.