Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Po­lice be­lieve 34-year-old Chini­qua White may have been a vic­tim of gang vi­o­lence.

White was shot sev­er­al times in a dri­ve-by on Mon­day night in Black Rock, To­ba­go, push­ing the is­land’s mur­der toll to ten for 2023. In 2022, the is­land record­ed ten mur­ders over­all.

Po­lice yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia that around 9.10, White, of Base­ment Road, Up­per Sev­enth Av­enue, Mal­ick, Barataria, was sit­ting in the pas­sen­ger side of a White Nis­san Ver­sa dri­ven by her boyfriend. A Ti­i­da, head­ing in the op­po­site di­rec­tion, came to a stop in front of them near the Black Rock Mul­ti-Pur­pose Cen­tre.

Two masked gun­men came out of the front of the ve­hi­cle and shot at the cou­ple, hit­ting White sev­er­al times. Her boyfriend es­caped un­harmed. She was rushed to the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal by her boyfriend, where doc­tors pro­nounced her dead. White’s body was moved to the Scar­bor­ough Mor­tu­ary where a post-mortem is sched­uled for some time next week.

Supt Rod­hill Kirk told Guardian Me­dia that in­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve an on­go­ing gang feud was be­hind the killing. He could not say, how­ev­er, if White was the in­tend­ed tar­get.

“Ap­par­ent­ly it was gang re­lat­ed. I’ll leave it right there. That’s based on the in­for­ma­tion com­ing to hand. So, un­til more in­for­ma­tion is re­ceived, we can con­firm it seems to have some el­e­ments re­lat­ed to a gang is­sue.”

He added, “One life lost is of ma­jor con­cern to the po­lice …This gang in­fil­tra­tion in To­ba­go is some­thing that is not as preva­lent as in Trinidad, but we are try­ing to nip it in the bud.”

He called on the pub­lic to work with the po­lice to bring the per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice.

“To­ba­go is such a qui­et and love­ly place, and to watch it get out of hand is some­thing that shouldn’t be tol­er­at­ed at all.”

Ac­cord­ing to da­ta Guardian Me­dia ob­tained from the TTPS, To­ba­go’s mur­der toll has stood at ten per year over the last five years – ex­cept in 2022 where the is­land record­ed sev­en mur­ders.

Kirk said To­ba­go po­lice have done their best and de­spite the chal­lenges, of­fi­cers re­main per­sis­tent.

“We are do­ing our best from our lev­el, but we are not on­ly try­ing to re­act to crime, we are al­so try­ing to pre­vent crime. How­ev­er, we are not im­mune from crime.”

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said he was sad­dened by the killing.

“The cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing this mur­der are un­clear to me at this mo­ment. I am con­cerned that this may be a case of crim­i­nal­i­ty fol­low­ing the young la­dy from Trinidad to To­ba­go. What­ev­er the cir­cum­stances are, it is the loss of a life that was full of po­ten­tial. We deeply sym­pa­thise with the fam­i­ly of the young la­dy,” Au­gus­tine said.

Mean­while, De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots leader Wat­son Duke called on Au­gus­tine to hold him­self re­spon­si­ble for the state of crime on the is­land.

“It mat­ters not whether mur­ders were solved or not. What mat­ters is that per­sons are mur­dered in a man­ner that you can­not ex­pect. When does it end?”

He called on Au­gus­tine to “take stock of this”.

“You said to the Prime Min­is­ter, ‘Mind your busi­ness.’ These mur­ders are tak­ing place in To­ba­go, on To­ba­go soil. You have to hold your­self ac­count­able for it.”

He said one mur­der was too much for To­ba­go and called for a mul­ti-agency ap­proach.

All of the mur­ders record­ed in To­ba­go this year in­volved the use of firearms. To­ba­go po­lice have been able to re­cov­er 25 il­le­gal guns so far in 2023.

Yes­ter­day, White’s fam­i­ly said she had gone to To­ba­go for a short va­ca­tion. Shocked rel­a­tives said White worked as a se­cu­ri­ty guard for G4S and went to To­ba­go on Sat­ur­day for a break away from the work at the home, where they were do­ing ren­o­va­tions.

“She just went to tan out her body and re­lax. She was a hard work­er, she usu­al­ly isn’t at home, she is al­most al­ways at work,” the rel­a­tives said.

Rel­a­tives said they could not think of a mo­tive for the mur­der but sus­pect­ed she may have sim­ply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

One rel­a­tive said she was not known to dab­ble in any il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties and re­mem­bered her as a “moth­er-fig­ure” for her sib­lings since the death of their par­ents some time ago.

An­oth­er rel­a­tive lament­ed the spate of crime and vi­o­lence on both is­lands, not­ing that To­ba­go, which was bet­ter known as a tourist des­ti­na­tion, was not spared from crim­i­nals.

“To­ba­go is the kind of place you used to be able to go and let your guard down a bit. A nor­mal per­son like her (White) can’t even let down their guard, that’s just how it is.

“You might think to your­self that you can go out there, have fun be­cause you don’t have any co­coa in the sun and don’t have to wor­ry about any­thing and just like that you can col­lect a stray (bul­let) and die.” (With re­port­ing by Shane Su­perville)