Derek Achong

A 51-year-old man was stabbed to death by a close male rel­a­tive in Laven­tille and two men were killed and one wound­ed in a shoot­ing in Co­corite be­tween Sat­ur­day night and yes­ter­day morn­ing.

These lat­est three killings and two more in south Trinidad raised the num­ber of cit­i­zens killed over the week­end, in­clud­ing po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings, to 18, as the coun­try con­tin­ued to reel from the lat­est spate of vi­o­lent crimes.

The lat­est se­ries of killings be­gan with the mur­der of Dex­ter Ben­jamin on Sat­ur­day night. 

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, around 7.50 pm, Ben­jamin was at his Choco­late Al­ley, So­gren Trace, Laven­tille home, when he had an ar­gu­ment which quick­ly be­came vi­o­lent with his 35-year-old rel­a­tive. 

The rel­a­tive re­port­ed­ly drew a knife and stabbed Ben­jamin sev­er­al times be­fore flee­ing the scene. 

Po­lice found Ben­jamin ly­ing un­con­scious in a track near his home and he was pro­nounced dead on the scene by a Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer (DMO). 

Ben­jamin’s 68-year-old wife was at home at the time but es­caped un­scathed. 

Homi­cide de­tec­tives at­tempt­ed to lo­cate the rel­a­tive, who can­not be iden­ti­fied un­til he is charged, but he was not de­tained up to late yes­ter­day evening. 

In the next in­ci­dent, 30-year-old Geo­vani Jones-Lash­ley, 21-year-old She­muel Robin­son and 23-year-old Dwight Lewis, all of Up­per Wa­ter­hole, Co­corite, were lim­ing near their homes around 9.30 am yes­ter­day when they heard a vol­ley of gun­shots. 

The men at­tempt­ed to run away but were all wound­ed. 

Jones-Lash­ley and Robin­son suc­cumbed to their in­juries while Lewis, who was shot in his leg, was tak­en to hos­pi­tal for treat­ment. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Lewis told po­lice he did not see who shot at him and his friends, as he be­gan to run up­on hear­ing the gun­shots and did not look back. 

When a news team from Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the com­mu­ni­ty sev­er­al hours af­ter the shoot­ing yes­ter­day, the lo­ca­tion was still cor­doned off and crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors were seen scour­ing the area for clues and ev­i­dence. 

While res­i­dents were help­ful in as­sist­ing me­dia per­son­nel in find­ing van­tage points in the hill­side com­mu­ni­ty to cap­ture footage of the crime scene, they de­clined to com­ment on what tran­spired. 

De­tec­tives of the Re­gion One Homi­cide Bu­reau are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to all three mur­ders. 

Mean­while, po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing an in­ci­dent in which a man was shot while help­ing a friend re­pair his car, which had stalled along the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way in Ari­ma on Sat­ur­day night. 

Po­lice said the in­ci­dent oc­curred around 9.30 pm as the 35-year-old man was help­ing his friend to re­pair his car which be­gan ex­pe­ri­enc­ing me­chan­i­cal is­sues near Tumpuna Road in Ari­ma. 

A car pulled along­side their ve­hi­cles and the dri­ver got out, drew a firearm and at­tempt­ed to rob the friends. 

The vic­tim at­tempt­ed to run away and was shot in the right arm by the man, who then re­turned to his ve­hi­cle and drove away. The vic­tim was tak­en to the Ari­ma Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal, where he was treat­ed and dis­charged.