Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Rel­a­tives of 23-year-old Ja­mal Rogers in­sist he was in­no­cent and are plead­ing with po­lice to find those re­spon­si­ble for gun­ning him down at his Princes Town home.

“We feel so hurt and so fed up be­cause in­no­cent peo­ple have to be go­ing for what rea­son. Peo­ple just dy­ing. Peo­ple tar­get­ing peo­ple. All that not called for,” lament­ed Rogers’ aunt, Teanelle Gob­in, yes­ter­day.

Rogers, a welder/fab­ri­ca­tor of Man­a­ham­bre Branch Road, was shot dead short­ly be­fore 10 pm on Thurs­day, while chang­ing a bulb near the front door of his home.

Re­ports stat­ed that a man ex­it­ed a ve­hi­cle and opened fire on Rogers. He ran in­to the house but the gun­man pur­sued him and con­tin­ued shoot­ing. Rogers’ moth­er and niece, who were in­side at the time, hid and were not in­jured. He col­lapsed in a room and was rushed to the Princes Town Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where he died around 10.08 pm while un­der­go­ing treat­ment. Po­lice re­trieved 20 spent shells at the scene.

The killing is the sec­ond mur­der in the area with­in two weeks. On May 6, Moni­fa Car­rie, 27, a moth­er of three from Beetham Gar­dens, Port-of-Spain, and her boyfriend Isa­iah Cruick­shank, 30, were both shot mul­ti­ple times in their car af­ter an­oth­er ve­hi­cle blocked them along Mal­gretoute Road, a short dis­tance from Rogers’ home. Car­rie lat­er suc­cumbed to her in­juries.

While in­ves­ti­ga­tors are ex­plor­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the mur­ders are linked, Gob­in was not con­vinced there was a con­nec­tion. How­ev­er, she in­sist­ed Rogers was not in­volved in that in­ci­dent or any il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty.

De­scrib­ing the mur­der as shock­ing, Gob­in said her nephew was chang­ing the bulb when the gun­man en­tered the yard and be­gan fir­ing at him. Bul­let holes were vis­i­ble in a win­dow, wall and door in­side the home. Wip­ing away tears, she said his life had nev­er been threat­ened be­fore.

“You can ask any­body, my nephew is one of the most lov­ing and sweet­est per­sons any­one could deal with. He was a very hard-work­ing per­son. He nev­er on noth­ing. His moth­er has one child. He had no beef with no­body. He had noth­ing with no one.”

She said Rogers di­vid­ed his time be­tween his moth­er’s home and his girl­friend’s house.

Re­call­ing that less than two years ago, in Oc­to­ber 2024, her broth­er Adesh Baal was found stabbed to death near a ceme­tery along Co­r­i­al Road, Williamsville, Gob­in lament­ed that there were too many mur­ders in the coun­try.

“I would like the po­lice to do their work, do their in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Too many peo­ple are feel­ing too much pain. There is so much go­ing on in this coun­try, you can­not trust any­body, can­not even trust the po­lice.”

She com­plained that po­lice some­times fail to act on in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to crimes.

“Peo­ple fed up. How many moth­ers will cry? How much peo­ple will cry? How much peo­ple feel­ing. It is not nice,” she lament­ed.

Of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion III are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.