Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go in­ves­ti­ga­tors have ques­tioned sev­er­al peo­ple in re­la­tion to Mon­day’s quadru­ple mur­der in Black Rock, To­ba­go.

Four men, Anslem Dou­glas, Gre­go­ry Ham­let, Samuel Mc Cain and Jamo­ki Dun­can were killed af­ter gun­men wear­ing cam­ou­flage uni­forms stormed Dou­glas’ home around mid­night. The men were gam­bling at Dou­glas’ home when the shoot­ing hap­pened.

Mc Cain, Ham­let and Dou­glas died on the scene. Dun­can died just af­ter 9.30 that night.

Head of To­ba­go’s po­lice ACP Col­lis Hazel told Guardian Me­dia that in­ves­ti­ga­tors are ex­plor­ing all pos­si­ble mo­tives at this time. He said, “At this point in time, we are ques­tion­ing two per­sons who are sus­pects in this mat­ter, and we are work­ing fever­ish­ly with the oth­er per­sons in or­der to bring the mat­ter to some lev­el of clo­sure.”

Snr Supt Rod­hill Kirk clar­i­fied to Guardian Me­dia that not all the peo­ple be­ing ques­tioned are sus­pects. He said a se­ries of ques­tion­ing with sev­er­al peo­ple was done through­out Mon­day and yes­ter­day and will con­tin­ue to­day. “The last sta­tus we had was that the per­sons who were ques­tioned were out. I know the in­ves­ti­ga­tors are talk­ing to oth­er per­sons now, but I can’t say if it’s in the ca­pac­i­ty of in­for­mant or sus­pect. They, how­ev­er, didn’t tell me if any sus­pects are in cus­tody but are talk­ing to peo­ple.”

Kirk said he and the of­fi­cers were “on the ground and there are still things we are do­ing on the out­side now.”

Up to yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, po­lice were still look­ing at re­venge as a pos­si­ble mo­tive for two mur­ders and shoot­ings in the Mt Pleas­ant area.

On Ju­ly 4, two men were in­jured, and Val­sayn res­i­dent De­siree Lawrence was killed. A lit­tle over one week ago, as To­ba­go braced for the im­pact of Hur­ri­cane Beryl, Nathan Roach was killed in his bed­room by an un­known gun­man at his Mt Pleas­ant home. Gun­men then re­turned to the home and at­tacked a male rel­a­tive, who man­aged to es­cape. Hours af­ter the mur­ders oc­curred, po­lice asked To­bag­o­ni­ans not to pan­ic.

“At this point in time, I as­sure you, all is not lost. We are still polic­ing the is­land. The po­lice were out and about when the in­ci­dent hap­pened. It was just un­for­tu­nate these per­sons found them­selves in such an un­want­ed sit­u­a­tion.” Hazel plead­ed with To­bag­o­ni­ans to band to­geth­er and “root out the reck­less­ness hap­pen­ing in To­ba­go,” Hazel said on Mon­day.

He al­so con­ced­ed that To­ba­go faced a new prob­lem in­volv­ing high-pow­ered guns, which were used in Mon­day’s killings.

But Black Rock res­i­dents were on edge and shocked by the killings. Res­i­dents were tight-lipped and in fear of be­ing the next tar­get. Some were even baf­fled by the sit­u­a­tion. Still, Guardian Me­dia man­aged to speak to res­i­dents and one busi­ness in the com­mu­ni­ty. It ap­pears the fear of pos­si­bly be­ing the next tar­get weighed heav­i­ly on those who lived near­by and even oth­ers who wit­nessed the gun­men flee­ing the scene.

A shop own­er said that while the area has had its share of vi­o­lence over the past decade, the mur­ders rocked the com­mu­ni­ty. A rel­a­tive of one of the de­ceased said she has no faith in the po­lice.

“Too much shoot­ing and killing in To­ba­go. Crime is go­ing on, and it feels like noth­ing is be­ing solved.”