Amid police claims of intensified efforts to curb the high murder rate, two more people were shot dead in separate incidents on Thursday.Murders now occur on average every 20 hours in T&T and the toll has now reached 266 for the year, whereas the toll for the corresponding period last year was 233.In the first murder, police said, around 4.15 pm residents of Mahogany Drive, Malabar, heard gunshots, after which they found a bleeding Kelvin "Fireman" Chapman on the pavement. The 30-year-old died on the scene.
Speaking with the media at the Forensic Science Centre, St James, yesterday, his grandmother Chrystal Chapman said she raised him from boyhood and had no clue why he would have been killed. Police also have no motive for his killing.In the second murder, a 51-year-old wanted man, who ran from the police on Thursday, was killed by gunmen hours later in what police say was "enemy territory."
Richard Phillip, alias "One for Ten" and "Sparrow," was pursued by members of the Western Division Task Force, led by Insp Henry Dann around 4.30 pm. Phillip, whom police described as a career criminal, from Upper Dibe Road, Long Circular, eluded capture after he ran into the hills.Three hours later, police were called to the scene of a murder at Lower Dibe Road, Long Circular, and found it was the man they had earlier been chasing.
Police said Phillip was wanted in connection with rape and robbery in the Western, Port-of-Spain, and Northern Divisions and had been featured on both Crime Watch and Beyond the Tape as a wanted man.