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Monday, July 21, 2025

Po­lice fig­ures show 37 mur­ders in first 31 days

Bloody start to the new year

by

20120201

Jan­u­ary marked a bloody start to 2012 in Trinidad and To­ba­go, with the na­tion record­ing some 37 mur­ders in 31 days. While there were nine less mur­ders last month, com­pared to Jan­u­ary 2011, Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) of­fi­cials ad­mit it is still a wor­ry­ing sta­tis­tic. TTPS Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion Of­fi­cer Sgt Wayne Mys­tar as­sured that po­lice of­fi­cers were com­mit­ted to the fight against crime. "We are not go­ing to give up the fight," he said in a tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian on Tues­day. "We will con­tin­ue to use all of the avail­able re­sources we have in or­der to bring the per­pe­tra­tors of these crimes (mur­ders) to jus­tice and will con­tin­ue to work to­geth­er with the pub­lic to re­duce crime and to im­prove the se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go."

While the sta­tis­tics of 37 mur­ders in 31 days are alarm­ing, Po­lice fig­ures show that the Jan­u­ary 2012 mur­ders are low­er than those record­ed last Jan­u­ary when there were 46 mur­ders. Mys­tar said the TTPS was still trou­bled by the re­cent mur­ders: "Every mur­der is of great con­cern to us." He not­ed that in most of the cas­es, the vic­tims knew "the per­sons who would have com­mit­ted these acts, so it is not to say it is ran­dom killings that are tak­ing place." He said cit­i­zens should not take it for grant­ed that "they will not be vic­tims" and should be "proac­tive and in­sti­tute per­son­al mea­sures that will as­sist them in pro­tect­ing them­selves. "The po­lice ser­vice will do their part and we are ask­ing the pub­lic to do their part too," he said.

The year start­ed with two mur­ders. Lloyd Bap­tiste, 40, of Mar­cano Quar­ry, Bev­er­ly Hills, Laven­tille, and Moru­ga res­i­dent Mar­cus Thomp­son, 27, were gunned down in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents. For Jan­u­ary, the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion record­ed the high­est num­ber of mur­ders with ten killings. The com­bined sta­tis­tics for Cen­tral and South­ern di­vi­sions were 14 mur­ders. Mys­tar urged cit­i­zens to take steps to en­sure their per­son­al safe­ty, such as lock­ing all doors and win­dows. "You may not able to con­trol the mo­tives or abil­i­ty of a crim­i­nal," he said. "How­ev­er, you can con­trol-we all can con­trol-the op­por­tu­ni­ties we give them. "We all have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to se­cure our homes and do some per­son­al things that will as­sist us in per­son­al pro­tec­tion. "Re­duce the op­por­tu­ni­ties to be a soft tar­get." Mys­tar said cit­i­zens must en­sure they be­came hard tar­gets for crim­i­nals.

Break­down of mur­ders for Jan­u­ary

Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion - 10

West­ern Di­vi­sion - 5

North-East­ern Di­vi­sion - 1

North­ern Di­vi­sion - 2

East­ern Di­vi­sion - 1

Cen­tral Di­vi­sion - 7

South­ern Di­vi­sion -7

South-West­ern Di­vi­sion - 1

To­ba­go Di­vi­sion - 0

At Sea - 3

Mur­der vic­tims

1. Lloyd Bap­tiste, 40, Mar­cano Quar­ry Bev­er­ly Hills, Laven­tille.

2. Mar­cus Thomp­son, 27, Moru­ga.

3. Abessia De­four, 26, La Ba­ja Road, Mara­cas/St Joseph.

4. Dil­lon Massey, 20, Mon Re­pos, San Fer­nan­do.

5. Anand Ramkar­ran, 30, Rochard Dou­glas Road, Bar­rack­pore.

6. Ak­ile Che­ston An­to­nio Si­mon, 20, West­ern Main Road, Co­corite.

7. Adri­an Hus­sein, 27, Sinanan Street, Pe­nal.

8. Dale Welling­ton, 24, Point Pleas­ant Road Ari­ma.

9. Ren­wick Bai­ley, 30, no fixed place of abode.

10. Al­lan Har­ry, 28, Her­rera Street, Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni.

11. Ken Math­ias, 40, Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni.

12. Wayne Welch­ers, 58, Cal­len­der Street, East Dry Riv­er, Port-of-Spain.

13. Rakesh "Chan­nas" Ramd­hawar, 32, Ar­buck­le Street, Fred­er­ick Set­tle­ment, Ca­roni.

14. Ravi Ram­saran, 26, Ca­can­dee Road, Fe­lic­i­ty.

15. Kassi­nath Ram­saran, 31, Ca­can­dee Road, Fe­lic­i­ty.

16. Pre­am Squires, 45, Long­denville.

17. Yu Quan Ze, 22, Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas.

18. Robert Nep­tune, 38, Sar­gan­ga Trace, Diego Mar­tin.

19. Shaquille Pierre, 18, Windy Hill, Arou­ca.

20. De­von Bal­lan­tyne, 32, Sa­van­nah Ter­race, Diego Mar­tin.

21. Mau­rice John Roberts, 27, Rhyn­er Street, Laven­tille.

22. Lin­coln Bak­er, 39, An­dre Trace, Diego Mar­tin.

23. Lalchan Dharus­ingh, 50, San­ta Cruz.

24. God­frey La­m­ont, 53, St James.

25. Ian Wells, 41, Gas­par­il­lo.

26. Dan­dell Douga, 27, Ox­ford Street, Port-of-Spain.

27. Andy "Cuban" Lopez, 33, Guapo Road, Point Fortin.

28. Robert Lewis, 64, Julien Trace, Cas­cade. (Shot on De­cem­ber 16, 2011, at Cas­cade, died Jan­u­ary 19, 2012.)

29. David Hem­ley, 50, San Fabi­an Road, Gas­par­il­lo.

30. Josi­ah Govenor, 6, Laven­tille.

31. Collin Find­ley, 39, Crown Trace, En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas.

32. Ty­ron Thomas, 23, Nel­son Street, Port-of-Spain.

33. Isa­iah Phillip, 20, Old St Joseph Road, Laven­tille.

34. Clin­ton Barsett, 25, Al­lis­ter Street, Laven­tille.

35. Mar­vin Hy­po­lite, 37, Sime­on Road, Diego Mar­tin.

36. Al­don Pe­gus, 35, Rose­hill Street Clax­ton Bay.

37. Dwayne Pil­grim, 23, Mar­aval.


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