SHAS­TRI BOODAN

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

A 33-year-old taxi dri­ver was shot dead while cross­ing the road near his New Set­tle­ment home to a mi­ni mart in Ch­agua­nas on Thurs­day evening, in what po­lice be­lieve was a tar­get­ed killing.

Dead is Joel Ma­coon, of 111 New Set­tle­ment, Ca­roni Sa­van­nah Road, Ch­agua­nas.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, short­ly af­ter 7 pm on Thurs­day, of­fi­cers from the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion re­spond­ed to a re­port of loud ex­plo­sions re­ceived from the E999 Po­lice Com­mand Cen­tre.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors were told that Ma­coon was cross­ing the road to a near­by mi­ni mart when a gun­man got out of a sil­ver Toy­ota Axio and opened fire.

The gun­man then re-en­tered the wait­ing ve­hi­cle, which sped away from the scene.

Ma­coon col­lapsed af­ter be­ing shot. He died at the scene.

The area was se­cured while po­lice processed ev­i­dence. In­ves­ti­ga­tors have not es­tab­lished a mo­tive for the killing and en­quiries are con­tin­u­ing.

When con­tact­ed, rel­a­tives of the de­ceased de­clined to com­ment.