The brazen­ness of the coun­try’s gang­sters claimed an­oth­er life just me­tres away from a po­lice base on Sat­ur­day night.

Twen­ty-three-year-old Chris­t­ian Sansavoir was shot dead a stone’s throw away from the Dun­can Street Po­lice Post.

His killing is the third in a week com­ing out of the on­go­ing gang ri­val­ry said to be be­tween the Sixx and Sev­en gangs.

Po­lice re­port­ed that around 7.30 pm on Sat­ur­day, Sansavoir was with five oth­ers lim­ing be­tween build­ing 47 and 49 Dun­can Street when gun­men walked up to them and opened fire. The killers then got back in­to a wait­ing white Nis­san X-trail parked op­po­site the Dun­can Street Po­lice Post and es­caped. The SUV was lat­er found aban­doned on Clifton Street near St Paul Street.

Po­lice re­cov­ered one ri­fle mag­a­zine with 28 rounds of 5.56 am­mu­ni­tion and 55 spent 5.56 rounds at the scene. Po­lice have la­belled the killing as gang-re­lat­ed al­though they have not iden­ti­fied Sansavoir as be­ing as­so­ci­at­ed with any gang.

His killing came a day af­ter an­oth­er man with no gang af­fil­i­a­tion, Ja­son Alexan­der, was mur­dered near the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion and River­side Plaza which hous­es the Re­gion I Homi­cide Bu­reau. Alexan­der was shot dead around 8 am on Fri­day when two men came out of a black BMW on St Paul Street near Rod­ney Street and opened fire. Those who were around ran with two oth­er men be­ing shot in the ab­domen and leg.

Last week Mon­day, Kevon Moses, 28, was shot dead mere min­utes af­ter he left the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion.

Moses was de­tained as a sus­pect in a re­cent shoot­ing in the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion but was re­leased around 6 pm. As he walked out of the po­lice sta­tion, a car drove up, a man got out and shot him. The killer re­turned to the car which sped off.

Dun­can Street res­i­dents

up­set with po­lice

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Dun­can Street yes­ter­day to speak with Sansavoir’s rel­a­tives, who ex­plained through their locked door that they were too dis­traught.

Res­i­dents who spoke anony­mous­ly said the Sansavoir was an­oth­er “in­no­cent pay­ing for the guilty.”

One woman said Sansavoir con­fid­ed in her re­cent­ly that he want­ed to pur­chase a car and was work­ing to­wards that. She said when he left her yard Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon, she told him to be care­ful. He was killed min­utes af­ter re­turn­ing home when he stopped to chat with his neigh­bours.

An­oth­er woman told Guardian Me­dia that since the shoot­ing, the nor­mal­ly busy streets and com­mu­ni­ty were qui­et as every­one re­mained in­doors.

Oth­er res­i­dents point­ed at the cam­eras near the Dun­can Street Po­lice Post and ques­tioned why the iden­ti­ties of the killers were not yet known. They added that the prox­im­i­ty of the po­lice post to the scene of the shoot­ing should have made the killers ei­ther sec­ond guess their mis­sion or at the very least they should have been caught im­me­di­ate­ly or con­front­ed by of­fi­cers.

Snr cop: Calm will

re­turn to PoS

Asked about what the res­i­dents de­scribed as the sup­posed in-ac­tion by the po­lice, the head of the In­ter-Agency Task Force Snr Supt Roger Alexan­der said the of­fi­cers at the po­lice post were on pa­trol out­side of the area along with units from Fort Cha­con and Char­ford Court.

Alexan­der said the fact that the killers were able to pounce on their vic­tims may be be­cause of a trai­tor amongst them and not be­cause of the po­lice. He added that in gang war­fare gang­sters are not able to trust their friends.

But Alexan­der added that af­ter Sat­ur­day’s mur­der, po­lice are now forced to re-eval­u­ate their op­er­a­tions.

“We must now re­strate­gise whether per­sons are get­ting more brave and more bold and brazen or we, be­liev­ing that all is well in that vicin­i­ty and some­how, we take it down a notch. So now we must re­assess that sit­u­a­tion and be on full alert 24 hours a day, sev­en days a week, all the time. No longer can we just sit and say we are in the safe zone which is a sta­tion. These per­sons have arms and am­mu­ni­tion, con­sis­tent with that of per­sons who are go­ing to war. We can­not af­ford to take that risk at all,” he said.

But he as­sured that calm would soon re­turn to the cap­i­tal city.

“As we speak, we ex­pect a lev­el of calm. We ex­pect a lev­el of calm with re­spect to gang ac­tiv­i­ties in and around Port-of-Spain.”

On Thurs­day po­lice ar­rest­ed some 15 men be­lieved to be af­fil­i­at­ed with gangs. By yes­ter­day, po­lice of­fi­cials said three were re­leased and the re­main­ing 12 were placed on sev­er­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rades with none of them be­ing iden­ti­fied in con­nec­tion with var­i­ous al­le­ga­tions.