An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The mur­der toll rose to 71 yes­ter­day fol­low­ing three sep­a­rate shoot­ings in Barataria, Cara­pichaima and Pe­tit Val­ley be­tween Fri­day and yes­ter­day.

In the first in­ci­dent, around 5.40 pm on March 7, res­i­dents re­port­ed hear­ing gun­shots com­ing from the vicin­i­ty of the sa­van­nah and lat­er found Nicholas Sim­mons, 25, of Sev­enth Av­enue, Mal­ick, bleed­ing from wounds to the head, neck, and body. As of­fi­cers ar­rived at the scene, they re­alised Sim­mons was still alive, so they rushed the in­jured man to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, where he was de­clared dead at 6:02 pm.

Of­fi­cers from the Spe­cial Ev­i­dence Re­cov­ery Unit (SERU) re­cov­ered three 5.56 mm and two 9 mm spent shells at the scene. Re­ports in­di­cate Sim­mons had been seat­ed on a con­crete bench on the west­ern side of the Otis Whit­ley Recre­ation­al Grounds, lim­ing and drink­ing beer with his girl­friend around 5.40 pm, when a sil­ver Nis­san Note stopped in the road, and two armed men ex­it­ed and opened fire on him.

As Sim­mons be­gan run­ning, he was shot and fell a short dis­tance away. As he lay on the ground bleed­ing and gasp­ing, he was pur­sued by the two gun­men and shot sev­er­al more times. The gun­men lat­er fled in the wait­ing car. Po­lice were up to yes­ter­day try­ing to de­ter­mine the mo­tive be­hind Sim­mons’s killing.

Cara­pichaima mur­der

In the sec­ond killing, around 9.45 am yes­ter­day, Ezekiel Davis of Or­ange Field Road, Cara­pichaima, was shot while lim­ing in a bar close to his home. The 30-year-old man was re­port­ed­ly con­front­ed by two armed men who alight­ed from a sil­ver Nis­san Almera, armed with an AR-15 ri­fle and a pis­tol. It was claimed that Davis tried to fight off the man with the ri­fle, but the oth­er gun­man fired at him sev­er­al times, killing him in­stant­ly.

Pe­tit Val­ley killing

In the third shoot­ing, just be­fore 1 pm at Skeete Lane, off Sime­on Road, Pe­tit Val­ley–a fa­ther of 13 was shot mul­ti­ple times as he stood on the road in front of his house. Sher­win “Bil­ly” Ma­son, 51, was rushed to the St James In­fir­mary by a close male rel­a­tive, where he was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival at 1:02 pm. Eye-wit­ness­es claimed Ma­son re­ceived a phone call whilst at his moth­er’s house, which is three doors down from his home, and he left im­me­di­ate­ly.

It was al­leged that up­on reach­ing his gate­way, two men–one armed with a ri­fle and an­oth­er with a pis­tol–ran out from a near­by yard and opened fire on Ma­son be­fore flee­ing on foot. As word spread that Ma­son had been killed, cries and wails filled the air yes­ter­day as rel­a­tives ar­rived at the scene, hold­ing and hug­ging each oth­er tight­ly. One of Ma­son’s nieces de­scribed him as, “A good man in the com­mu­ni­ty. He was a man who showed love in the com­mu­ni­ty. He was a man peo­ple re­spect­ed. He was a man for his fam­i­ly, and I think he didn’t de­serve to die like that.”

Ad­mit­ting the qui­et of the com­mu­ni­ty had been in­ter­rupt­ed by the gun­shots, she added, “The lit­tle play­ground has be­come a bat­tle­field.” Re­veal­ing she had last spo­ken to Ma­son a few days ago, the woman, who asked that her name not be pub­lished, said, “To hear this ... it was re­al­ly shock­ing. Every­body looked up to him.”

While many peo­ple peeped out from their homes yes­ter­day, it was on­ly a hand­ful of res­i­dents–many of whom were Ma­son’s rel­a­tives–who gath­ered with law­men as they watched foren­sic of­fi­cers at work. De­spite the glow­ing ref­er­ence of Ma­son by his rel­a­tives, one man was over­heard say­ing, “Thank God they got him this time.”

The man in ques­tion claimed Ma­son, who was de­scribed as a for­mer com­mu­ni­ty leader, had made life hard for sev­er­al peo­ple.