To­ba­go po­lice are ask­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans not to pan­ic af­ter an al­leged drug deal­er was gunned down on Wednes­day night in Ply­mouth.

Po­lice said 42-year-old fish­er­man An­tho­ny May­nard was with a group of men near Ply­mouth Junc­tion when he was shot dead in a dri­ve-by shoot­ing around 10.30 pm.

Three oth­er peo­ple were in­jured and were trans­port­ed to the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for emer­gency med­ical treat­ment, where up to last evening they were in a crit­i­cal but sta­ble con­di­tion.

To­ba­go has had nine mur­ders so far in 2024. For the same pe­ri­od last year, the is­land had six, which rep­re­sents a 50 per cent in­crease in mur­ders.

Re­gard­ing the lat­est killing, in­ves­ti­ga­tors sus­pect drug and gang vi­o­lence may be the mo­tive.

With a spike in mur­ders, To­ba­go po­lice are now promis­ing to re­gain con­trol of crime.

Snr Supt Rod­hill Kirk told Guardian Me­dia, “We are go­ing to get to the bot­tom of this. But we are urg­ing the pub­lic to be vig­i­lant with their sur­round­ings. We don’t want you to walk about in fear, but at the same time be aware.”

He again called on the pub­lic to work with the po­lice to re­duce crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty.

The lat­est mur­der came a week af­ter 29-year-old Nek­isha Sandy was shot dead, a stone’s throw away from Wednes­day night’s dri­ve-by. She was cor­nered by two gun­men and shot mul­ti­ple times.

Mean­while, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is promis­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans that the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly will do all in its pow­er to ar­rest the spi­ralling crime sit­u­a­tion on the is­land.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day, he said the sit­u­a­tion has now be­come wor­ry­ing and said ‘par­adise’ can­not be lost.

He said, “We are work­ing hand in hand as hard as pos­si­ble. As strate­gi­cal­ly as pos­si­ble to ar­rest the sit­u­a­tion. I’m in­sis­tent that To­ba­go, we can­not lose an­oth­er par­adise. To­ba­go will not be lost in this bat­tle; we will win this bat­tle.”

Com­ment­ing on the re­cent reap­point­ment of Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Au­gus­tine raised con­cerns about the se­lec­tion process, say­ing To­ba­go must have an in­put.

“I think the time has come for us to take an­oth­er look at how we go about se­lect­ing Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice. I don’t think we have the best process, and I don’t think the process we have has al­ways brought to the ta­ble the best tal­ent.”

He point­ed out the im­ple­men­ta­tion of mod­ern strate­gies, tech­nol­o­gy, and crit­i­cal think­ing skills as key to com­bat­ing crime ef­fec­tive­ly.

Once this is done, Au­gus­tine said he has faith the com­mis­sion­er will help the is­land win the fight against crime.

“The chal­lenge we face is an ex­ten­sion of that the coun­try faces, which is one with il­le­gal firearms. The drug trade and the in­ter­play be­tween those el­e­ments and the com­mu­ni­ty.

“We are in­sis­tent that we should nev­er get to the point where it is be­yond con­trol, and while what we are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing is an es­ca­la­tion to what we are used to, we will not be com­fort­able un­til we are able to turn to the kind of sit­u­a­tion that we view as nor­mal.

“We can’t get a han­dle on crime if com­mu­ni­ties re­main silent while this thing runs away from us,” he lament­ed.

“We recog­nise the times we live in, and we can­not sit idly by and say it’s not our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

Gangs spread­ing

on is­land

As the is­land’s mur­der count climbs, chair­man of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce Cur­tis Williams has called on Hare­wood-Christo­pher to make To­ba­go a pri­or­i­ty in her crime-fight­ing ef­forts as she serves a sec­ond one-year term in of­fice.

He made this call hours be­fore Wednes­day’s mur­der, in a sit-down in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia.

While he had mixed views on the ex­ten­sion of her ser­vice, he too is con­fi­dent in her abil­i­ties to re­duce crime on the is­land.

“Some of the is­sues we see hop­ping up in the medi­um term is crime of gangs. We would push to the ACP to treat with the gang cul­ture,” he said.

“That gang is­sue is spread­ing through the is­land. Our mem­bers are con­cerned about what is hap­pen­ing with crime be­cause it doesn’t send a good mes­sage to in­vestors.”

He said the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing the po­lice.