T&T record­ed its first mur­der for 2025 one hour in­to the new year, even as a State of Emer­gency (SoE) was in full ef­fect for the coun­try.

Kee­gan Bar­bour, 39, of Pep­per Hill, Laven­tille Road, San Juan, was shot mul­ti­ple times at 1 am yes­ter­day.

Re­ports in­di­cate the de­ceased was asleep at home, when rel­a­tives heard a com­mo­tion com­ing from the bed­room, fol­lowed by gun­shots.

Up­on check­ing, the rel­a­tives found Bar­bour ly­ing in some near­by bush­es, bleed­ing from gun­shot wounds.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Bar­bour’s house yes­ter­day, rel­a­tives de­clined to speak whilst near­by res­i­dents re­fused to com­ment as well.

One man said, “The fam­i­ly is griev­ing and it not safe to speak to no­body right now.”

He lat­er urged re­porters to leave the area.

Mean­while, po­lice de­nied claims there was a shoot­ing at Sixth Av­enue, Mal­ick, Barataria, at 7 am yes­ter­day that left one man dead and an­oth­er nurs­ing in­juries.

Po­lice of­fi­cials in­sist­ed this false in­for­ma­tion be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed on­line.

Se­nior of­fi­cers from the North East­ern Di­vi­sion dis­missed the re­ports af­ter car­ry­ing out ex­ten­sive checks in the area as well as med­ical in­sti­tu­tions.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that of­fi­cers vis­it­ed the area and spoke to res­i­dents and were told the vic­tims had been tak­en to hos­pi­tal.

How­ev­er, of­fi­cers were un­able to lo­cate any of the al­leged vic­tims when they checked the hos­pi­tal.

The of­fi­cers were al­so un­able to lo­cate any ev­i­dence to sug­gest that a shoot­ing had tak­en place at the said lo­ca­tion.

Po­lice said they be­lieved the crim­i­nal el­e­ments were test­ing the TTPS’ re­sponse times, but they as­sured that the au­thor­i­ties were ready for any­thing. — An­na-Lisa Paul