Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

The sis­ter of this coun­try’s first mur­der vic­tim for 2026 is ap­peal­ing to the vic­tims of ex­tor­tion to come for­ward and re­port their ex­pe­ri­ences to the po­lice, as she says her broth­er was al­so pres­sured by crim­i­nals to pay a “tax” in the months be­fore his mur­der.

Po­lice said 60-year-old busi­ness­man Ricky Tay­lor was stand­ing at the cor­ner of Prince and George Streets in down­town Port of Spain, at around 1.15 pm on New Year’s Day, when he was shot and killed by a gun­man, who es­caped by run­ning through a near­by build­ing.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James, Tay­lor’s sis­ter, Rhon­da Tay­lor, con­firmed that her broth­er was ap­proached by crim­i­nals in 2025, which led to shots be­ing fired at his mi­ni-mart.

“That was just last year when they shot at the mi­ni-mart, and his daugh­ter was grazed by one of the bul­lets. Since then, I told him to be more care­ful around these peo­ple, but they could nev­er tell.

“He brushed it off and didn’t take it too se­ri­ous­ly be­cause it’s peo­ple he was around every­day, but you can’t af­ford to trust peo­ple.”

She said her broth­er owned and op­er­at­ed the mi­ni-mart for five years and be­lieved that he re­port­ed the in­ci­dent of ex­tor­tion to the po­lice.

Tay­lor al­so urged any­one who may have felt threat­ened by crim­i­nals to pay a tax to come for­ward, but al­so ac­knowl­edged that some peo­ple may be hes­i­tant to re­port their ex­pe­ri­ences for their own safe­ty.

“Some­times when you re­port things to the po­lice, the po­lice them­selves go back and say, ‘This per­son say so and so,’ but it’s al­ways best to re­port it.”

She al­so urged law en­force­ment and the gov­ern­ment to take a more de­ci­sive stance against crim­i­nals for the new year, as she felt they were ful­ly aware of the prob­lems peo­ple ex­pe­ri­enced on a dai­ly ba­sis.

Tay­lor said while she was pleased with the height­ened po­lice pres­ence dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son, she hoped that ad­di­tion­al po­lice vis­i­bil­i­ty and ac­tiv­i­ties could con­tin­ue on a more sus­tained ba­sis through­out the year.

“I was hap­py to see po­lice pa­trols through­out Christ­mas, and I think around those parts there needs to be more po­lice be­cause these fel­las just do­ing what they want.

“You can’t be threat­en­ing peo­ple’s lives all the time and every­day and the po­lice not do­ing any­thing, be­cause the po­lice know who is do­ing these things.”

One man who ac­com­pa­nied Tay­lor’s rel­a­tives to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre said he had known Tay­lor since he was a child and cred­it­ed him for teach­ing him the im­por­tance of dis­ci­pline and ap­pre­ci­a­tion for one’s com­mu­ni­ty.

The man, who asked not to be named, said Tay­lor was orig­i­nal­ly from So­gren Trace, Laven­tille, and de­scribed him as a “fix­ture” in the neigh­bour­hood as he main­tained close ties with every­one.

He said he was frus­trat­ed by the ap­par­ent lack of out­cry over Tay­lor’s mur­der, who he said strived to steer neigh­bour­hood youths to­wards pro­duc­tive, healthy lives.

“It just feels like every­body is look­ing around and wait­ing for some­body else to take ac­tion and do some­thing about this (crime) prob­lem, and un­less it hits home, they won’t re­alise the se­ri­ous­ness of what we’re deal­ing with.

“He (Tay­lor) was al­ways ac­tive in or­gan­is­ing foot­ball events and so on. When last you hear a young boy say he wants to be like Ato Boldon when he grows up? That’s how im­por­tant things like that are.”

Of­fi­cers of the Re­gion I Homi­cide Bu­reau are con­tin­u­ing en­quiries in­to Tay­lor’s mur­der.