Se­nior Supt of the West­ern Di­vi­sion, Garvin Hen­ry, says in­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve the re­cent mur­ders in Co­corite are a re­sult of feud­ing fac­tions in the com­mu­ni­ty.

He warned that law en­force­ment of­fi­cials will not al­low the fight for turf and pow­er to fur­ther dis­rupt and dis­en­fran­chise the lives and well-be­ing of res­i­dents. 

“There isn’t any turf. The area be­longs to the com­mu­ni­ty to be utilised pri­mar­i­ly for their well-be­ing. We are go­ing to re­sist, pre­vent and dis­man­tle any claim or fight for turf,” Hen­ry said.

Yes­ter­day, he gave an up­date on the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the May 4 shoot­ing at Phase One, Pow­der Mag­a­zine, which left four dead and eight oth­ers nurs­ing in­juries. Hen­ry said two peo­ple of in­ter­est who were de­tained by po­lice one day af­ter the shoot­ing, re­mained in po­lice cus­tody. 

A 29-year-old Co­corite man was nabbed at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port on Sun­day as he wait­ed to board a flight bound for New York.

The man’s 33-year-old male rel­a­tive was ar­rest­ed af­ter of­fi­cers ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant for arms and am­mu­ni­tion at his Co­corite house and re­cov­ered sev­er­al rounds of 5.56 mm and 9 mm am­mu­ni­tion, along with a mag­a­zine con­tain­ing five rounds of 9 mm am­mu­ni­tion.

Hen­ry said, “There are fac­tions in the com­mu­ni­ty that are feud­ing.”

But when asked to say what ex­act­ly they were fight­ing for, he avoid­ed go­ing in­to specifics.

He sim­ply stat­ed, “Pet­ti­ness.”

Sat­ur­day’s shoot­ing, which oc­curred around 11 pm, claimed the lives of Shaquille Ot­t­ley, 22; Sadi­ki Ot­t­ley, 31; Jonathan Os­mond, 36; and An­to­nio Jack, 57.

Hen­ry as­sured sur­vivors and trau­ma­tised res­i­dents that the po­lice would not be turn­ing its back on them. 

“We have in­creased our pres­ence in the area con­sid­er­ably since, and we will con­sis­tent­ly and con­tin­u­ous­ly main­tain that.

“It will re­main that way for a pe­ri­od of time un­til a re­assess­ment is made,” Hen­ry said. 

Ap­peal­ing to the pub­lic to come for­ward and pro­vide in­for­ma­tion to the po­lice, the se­nior of­fi­cer con­firmed the TTPS’s Wit­ness and Vic­tim Sup­port Unit had re­turned to the apart­ment com­plex yes­ter­day to con­tin­ue help­ing the trau­ma­tised res­i­dents.

He said, “Slow­ly but sure­ly, we are en­gag­ing the com­mu­ni­ty with a view to re­build. We want them to build on that trust, as any trau­ma these peo­ple might have suf­fered, we will work to see if we can al­le­vi­ate it.”