A 27-year-old man was killed and his fa­ther se­ri­ous­ly in­jured dur­ing an at­tempt­ed rob­bery in Carlsen Field yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Po­lice said four masked men armed with guns en­tered the house of Matthew Perez Chris­t­ian be­tween 5.30 and 6 am through a back en­trance and de­mand­ed mon­ey.

A close rel­a­tive, who asked not to be named, told Guardian Me­dia that Chris­t­ian and his son Christo­pher at­tempt­ed to push the ban­dits out of the house and fight them off. Dur­ing the strug­gle, Christo­pher was shot in the chest and died in the liv­ing room. The fa­ther was al­so shot.

The ban­dits then fled.

The el­der Chris­t­ian was tak­en to the Ch­agua­nas Health  Cen­tre by the po­lice and then trans­ferred to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Cen­tre in an am­bu­lance for fur­ther treat­ment.

Christo­pher’s moth­er Lynette Frankie, was in a state of dis­be­lief at the scene while his girl­friend Gi­ta Sookdeo cried open­ly as she got the bad news.  Christo­pher worked on the farm with his fa­ther.

The fam­i­ly sells meat and op­er­ates out of the St James Mar­ket, where Chris­t­ian is known as Perez the “beef man”.

Shi­raz Khan, pres­i­dent of the Trinidad Uni­fied Farm­ers As­so­ci­a­tion and a neigh­bour of the vic­tims, said it was time farm­ers got firearms to pro­tect them­selves. He said armed ban­dits broke in­to his home in March. An an­gry and vi­su­al­ly up­set Khan said he was fed up with the “old talk.” He said there have been about 20 rob­beries in re­cent times in Carlsen Field. Khan said ban­dits have grad­u­at­ed from beat­ing their vic­tims in Carlsen Field to killing them.

“We have been talk­ing to po­lice, we have been go­ing on the me­dia and com­plain­ing and not one (ex­ple­tive) thing has been done around here. No po­lice pa­trol. Imag­ine 20 rob­beries and no­body eh get hold, look at where it reach to­day, now mur­der in Carlsen Field. I have to hear my neigh­bour, them chil­dren does be work­ing so (ex­ple­tive) hard, you un­der­stand, now get up to do their work 5.30 am and this is what have to hap­pen boy.

“My place was break open on March 8, I now leave to go to Mosque, since the 8th of  March is on­ly rob­bery, rob­bery, rob­bery one af­ter the oth­er. They beat up Mr Lakhan out the road there. Po­lice come and we ent get­ting no pa­trols.”

Khan said enough is enough.

“We have to start to protest and block the road and ask for firearms, we want firearms.”

An­oth­er res­i­dent Brich­nu Dass, 65, said he wants to leave the area.

“I scared, I up­tight I don’t know if I could make it here again.”

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent is be­ing con­duct­ed by of­fi­cers from the Freeport Po­lice Sta­tion and Homi­cide Bu­reau South.