Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@guardian.co.tt

A $100,000 re­ward has been of­fered by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to any­one who can iden­ti­fy who car­ried out the Gon­za­les mass shoot­ing on Sun­day that spilt over to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Eight peo­ple were shot; four of them died.

Speak­ing with mem­bers of the me­dia at his min­istry’s head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds de­scribed the mass shoot­ing as an “un­savoury and un­for­tu­nate crim­i­nal in­ter­ven­tion.” Re­veal­ing that mo­ments be­fore he was pro­vid­ed with an up­date from the TTPS on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Hinds said, “The po­lice are now re­view­ing footage wher­ev­er that is avail­able that may lead them to a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of what was done and who did it. They are in­ter­view­ing per­sons and by virtue of the in­tel­li­gence that is un­der­pin­ning the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion, they are clear in their minds that the at­tack was mo­ti­vat­ed out of gang-re­lat­ed is­sues.”

The Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter urged the peo­ple of Gon­za­les to co-op­er­ate with the po­lice. “I am call­ing on the com­mu­ni­ty in light of the re­ward of $100,000 to as­sist qui­et­ly; there are per­sons who you can trust and who you can share with, and the State will treat with it con­fi­den­tial­ly, and I am en­cour­ag­ing the cit­i­zens, even for your own sakes, you may save a life if you did that, and the life you save may just be your own,” the min­is­ter plead­ed. Hinds al­so sought to as­sure the pub­lic that re­ports stat­ing that the as­sailants were dressed in po­lice at­tire were un­true at this point in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

But the min­is­ter added that mul­ti­ple killings are be­com­ing more fre­quent in this coun­try, pos­si­bly due to the mul­ti­ple rounds of am­mu­ni­tion that can be dis­charged from a high-pow­ered ri­fle.

Read­ing out da­ta that he said he ob­tained from the TTPS, Hinds said, “In 2023, in terms of dou­ble mur­ders, we have 53 of them, mean­ing 106 per­sons would have been mur­dered in this coun­try in 53 dou­ble homi­cide events. In 2024 we have had, so far, 13 dou­ble homi­cides; un­for­tu­nate­ly, we have had two triple homi­cides; in so far as quadru­ple mur­ders are con­cerned to date, we have had three.” The min­is­ter lament­ed that gang cul­ture re­mains a ma­jor part of this coun­try’s prob­lems. “The po­lice sta­tis­tics re­veal that as far as 65 per cent of the homi­cides we have, whether sin­gle, dou­ble, triple, quadru­ple, or quin­tu­ple, we know from the po­lice records that they are gang-re­lat­ed,” Hinds re­vealed. To com­bat the al­lure of gang life, the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter high­light­ed sev­er­al sport­ing, ed­u­ca­tion­al, and en­tre­pre­neur­ial op­por­tu­ni­ties af­ford­ed to young peo­ple in the coun­try by the Gov­ern­ment and said most young peo­ple en­rol in those pro­grammes.

He chas­tised the me­dia for not of­ten high­light­ing those suc­cess sto­ries. But he lament­ed that their ini­tia­tives are thwart­ed by the il­le­gal gun trade and li­cenced ven­dors who put their busi­ness in­ter­ests above pub­lic safe­ty, the Op­po­si­tion’s non-co­op­er­a­tion in pass­ing crime-fight­ing leg­is­la­tion, and what he in­ferred as soft sen­tences hand­ed down by the ju­di­cia­ry.

“We are now at a place, that be­cause of de­lays in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, the courts are grant­i­ng bail even for mur­der; that did not hap­pen in my time, that hap­pened in re­cent times,” he said.

The min­is­ter added, “A man was charged for the of­fence of rob­bery with vi­o­lence, that means he in­tim­i­dat­ed some­one with a gun or knife. The mat­ter was heard on March 1, 2024, and he went be­fore a mas­ter of the court and plead­ed guilty to the charge. He was then sen­tenced to com­pen­sate the per­son he robbed in the sum of $20,000, and he was giv­en un­til the 27, 2024, to pay back the man. You heard what I am telling you?”

Hinds said the po­lice have com­plained about this and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour has raised it with the Ju­di­cia­ry.