Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go cor­re­spon­dent

Still reel­ing from the shock of the un­clas­si­fied deaths of two women who were found in an apart­ment in Mo­ri­ah, two days ago, To­ba­go was rocked once more by a mur­der yes­ter­day morn­ing.

The vic­tim has been iden­ti­fied as 37-year-old Clif­ford Ram­sook of Good­wood. To­ba­go’s mur­der toll now stands at 14 for 2023—four more than the to­tal fig­ure in 2022.

Po­lice told Guardian Me­dia that Ram­sook, a charge hand with the Di­vi­sion of In­fra­struc­ture, Quar­ries and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment at the Golds­bor­ough De­vel­op­ment, was shot dead in Golds­bor­ough around 5 pm.

The fa­ther of three was last seen on Fri­day night lim­ing with a group of men. He got in­to a heat­ed ar­gu­ment with a gam­bler over a card game.

He was found hours lat­er in a bushy area, just off the main road. Po­lice be­lieve the al­ter­ca­tion ear­li­er that night may be linked to his death.

Just as un­der­tak­ers lift­ed Ram­sook’s body to put it in­side the hearse, two gun­shots rang out, leav­ing crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors star­tled. One of­fi­cer ran to a near­by house look­ing for the shoot­er, but he was un­able to iden­ti­fy ex­act­ly which di­rec­tion the shots came from.

Ram­sook’s rel­a­tives were in­con­solable as they iden­ti­fied his body be­fore un­der­tak­ers trans­ferred it to the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal Mor­tu­ary for an au­top­sy.

This mur­der comes less than a day af­ter De­von Stew­art ap­peared in court charged with the mur­der of Janelle Sowe-Thomas. Sowe-Thomas was found burnt in a drain, with her hands and feet bound at Gle­nea­gles Dri­ve, Mt Irvine.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, head of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion ACP Col­lis Hazel said his of­fi­cers are do­ing all in their pow­er to solve Ram­sook’s case.

He lament­ed, “I was on a pa­trol around 1 am, pass­ing that very area … An­oth­er mur­der again in this sit­u­a­tion is one mur­der too much. This is not the high­est, To­ba­go had 16 mur­ders in 2019. That is not a cor­rect state­ment.”

But, the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice crime sta­tis­tics 2015-2022, ex­tract­ed from the TTPS Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis Unit, showed there had on­ly been ten mur­ders in To­ba­go in 2019.

Still, Hazel said this up­ward tra­jec­to­ry will not con­tin­ue.

He said, “Clear­ly, we can’t al­low all these bru­tal in­ci­dents in a tourism econ­o­my to con­tin­ue, and stronger ef­forts will be made in or­der to en­sure that we work in re­solv­ing these is­sues that have brought the year to an end.”

Hazel al­so called on the men who were with Ram­sook on Fri­day night to come for­ward.

“We are mak­ing the call for per­sons who would have known what hap­pened ... If they know these per­sons that are will­ing to come for­ward and as­sist the po­lice in their in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

He said po­lice are now re­view­ing CCTV footage with hopes to have a sus­pect in cus­tody soon.

When ques­tioned about the To­ba­go pub­lic’s de­mand for the po­lice to re­gain con­trol of the mur­der sit­u­a­tion, Hazel as­sured that he is ded­i­cat­ed to re­duc­ing the num­ber of mur­ders.

Un­like Trinidad, he ex­plained that To­ba­go is full of back-to-back ac­tiv­i­ties year-round, and while the of­fi­cers have been do­ing their best, he an­tic­i­pates the pass­ing out of re­cruits to strength­en To­ba­go’s man­pow­er.

“We con­tin­ue to work. We can’t be every­where and that is why we need the sup­port from those on the is­land to help us to deal with these is­sues. There needs to be a clos­er col­lab­o­ra­tion with the po­lice for its crime-fight­ing ef­forts.”

CoP ready to meet with stake­hold­ers

Less than a week af­ter the To­ba­go cham­ber called on Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher for an emer­gency meet­ing in To­ba­go, she con­firmed that she is ready to meet with To­ba­go stake­hold­ers.

Cur­tis Williams, To­ba­go chair­man of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce called for the meet­ing af­ter To­ba­go saw a wor­ry­ing spike in its mur­der toll.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, an of­fi­cial from the Of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice said Hare­wood-Christo­pher in­di­cat­ed she would meet To­ba­go stake­hold­ers in the com­ing year.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher said she un­der­stands that com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment was crit­i­cal in law en­force­ment so she will make the emer­gency meet­ing in To­ba­go a pri­or­i­ty.

Williams is ex­pect­ed to send an of­fi­cial in­vi­ta­tion to the com­mis­sion­er on Jan­u­ary 1.