Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

There have been two mur­ders in Mor­vant, as homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors work to­wards con­firm­ing whether there is any link be­tween the two killings.

In the most re­cent in­ci­dent, po­lice said Shir­van All­sop, 26, alias “Strik­er,” was at his Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, Mor­vant, home at around 10.40 pm on Sun­day when he got a call on his cell­phone.

All­sop re­port­ed­ly walked out of his home to­wards Low­er Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, near the East­ern Main Road, when he was gunned down.

Po­lice vis­it­ed the scene with a dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer, who de­clared him dead.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors found 23 spent 9 mm shells of vary­ing types and 16 spent 5.56 mm shells.

The mo­tive for his mur­der was clas­si­fied as be­ing “gang-re­lat­ed” by po­lice.

Hours ear­li­er, 33-year-old Ja­mal Carter, alias “Big Joe,” was shot by gun­men as he sat on an emp­ty beer crate on Arneaud Av­enue (al­so known as In­dus­tri­al Lane) off La­dy Young Av­enue, Mor­vant, on Sat­ur­day morn­ing.

Carter, re­port­ed­ly, tried to run away but was chased by his at­tack­ers and gunned down.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors found 26 spent 9 mm shell cas­ings and a live round of am­mu­ni­tion.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day, one of Adams’ rel­a­tives, who asked not to be named, said he did not know what to say in the af­ter­math of the mur­der, but on­ly urged peo­ple in the neigh­bour­hood to avoid per­pet­u­at­ing a cy­cle of vi­o­lence.

“The most we can tell them is to put down the guns. We can’t tell them any­thing again.”

The rel­a­tive added that he felt it was hard for the po­lice to in­tro­duce any change in the com­mu­ni­ty, as he felt they were do­ing every­thing they could.

Adams’ fam­i­ly said he was un­em­ployed and was the fa­ther of a 12-year-old boy.

Al­so vis­it­ing the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, were All­sop’s rel­a­tives who ar­rived to iden­ti­fy his body.

One rel­a­tive said All­sop’s old­er broth­er, Ak­il All­sop, was al­so killed on the same street in June 2018 and found it dif­fi­cult to process the loss of an­oth­er sib­ling to gun vi­o­lence.

“It’s hard be­cause the same thing hap­pened to his broth­er in the same lo­ca­tion.

“It’s dif­fi­cult, but I’m get­ting the sup­port of the fam­i­ly. I’m just speech­less and sad­dened.

“I’m hop­ing the po­lice can bring us some clo­sure be­cause, as I said the old­er broth­er was killed and to this day we haven’t had any up­dates with his mur­der ei­ther.”

The rel­a­tive said All­sop worked in the pack­ag­ing de­part­ment of Hol­i­day Foods, not­ing that she nev­er had cause to warn him about the dan­gers of the com­mu­ni­ty, as he sel­dom min­gled among oth­ers in the neigh­bour­hood.

“He nev­er used to be out and lim­ing; he was al­ways work­ing. In fact, up to this morn­ing, he would have had to go to work; now we have to make fu­ner­al arrange­ments.”

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to the head of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion, Snr Supt Claire Guy-Al­leyne, through the TTPS Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit for re­sponse, but re­ceived no re­ply up to news time.

The three ques­tions sought re­spons­es on the po­lice’s mes­sage to Mor­vant res­i­dents fol­low­ing both mur­ders, whether there was any in­for­ma­tion on whether the mur­ders of both men were re­lat­ed and if the North East­ern Di­vi­sion was ca­pa­ble of re­spond­ing to se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns with­in the Mor­vant Po­lice Sta­tion Dis­trict.

Mur­ders in Mor­vant for the year thus far

* On Jan­u­ary 14, Aki­do Si­mon, 45, was shot and killed on the La­dy Young Road, Mor­vant, near the Las Al­turas Hous­ing Com­plex.

* On Jan­u­ary 17, Ha­keem Zion Nev­er­son, 22, was killed, and an­oth­er man was shot and wound­ed dur­ing a dri­ve-by shoot­ing on Chi­napoo Road, Mor­vant.

* Al­so on the night of Jan­u­ary 17, a man who was not iden­ti­fied was found with gun­shot wounds in a sil­ver Maz­da wag­on on An­ge­line Street, near the Mor­vant Ceme­tery.

* On April 19, nine-year-old J’Lay­na Arm­strong, her un­cle Asim Arm­strong, Obateaiye Lat­iff and Chelsea Ed­wards were shot dead while trav­el­ling along the La­dy Young Road, Mor­vant, near a walkover.

* Den­ni­son Jack, 39, was shot in his neck while sit­ting in his car on In­dus­tri­al Road, Mor­vant, on April 16. He died from his wound days lat­er in hos­pi­tal on April 21.

* On May 16, Ja­mal Adams was gunned down on Arneaud Av­enue, off La­dy Young Av­enue.

* On the night of May 17, Shiv­an All­sop, 26, was gunned down at the cor­ner of Sec­ond Cale­do­nia Road and the East­ern Main Road.