Po­lice were yes­ter­day evening search­ing for a Gon­za­les man who went on an af­ter­noon shoot­ing spree in his com­mu­ni­ty which left a 13-year-old boy ward­ed at hos­pi­tal. Ac­cord­ing to eye­wit­ness re­ports around 3.30 pm, three cousins ages 13, ten and eight were play­ing near their Blen­man Lane, Gon­za­les, home when they no­ticed their gun-tot­ing neigh­bour. The gun­man re­port­ed­ly point­ed the gun at the group of boys and be­gan fir­ing in their di­rec­tion. Two of the boys man­aged to es­cape through a flight of stairs while their 13-year-old cousin Kadir Ra­j­coomar was shot once in his back.

The gun­man who res­i­dents de­scribed as "crazy and ig­no­rant" fled the scene on foot through a track. While mak­ing his es­cape the gun­man shot at sev­er­al res­i­dents who rushed to the in­jured teenag­er's aid. Ra­j­coomar, a Form One stu­dent of Mu­cu­rapo East Sec­ondary School was rushed to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal were he re­mained ward­ed in a sta­ble con­di­tion up to late yes­ter­day evening.

Rel­a­tives said that they were in­formed by the teenag­er's doc­tors that the bul­let was lodged in the spine. When a news team from T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the com­mu­ni­ty yes­ter­day, Ra­j­coomar's ten-year-old rel­a­tive who was al­so shot at dur­ing the in­ci­dent re­lat­ed the events.

He said that when the gun­man be­gan shoot­ing, Ra­j­coomar in­struct­ed him to take their young cousin and run to safe­ty. "I just see the man pull the gun and start shoot­ing. I don't know why," the boy, who was still trem­bling af­ter the shoot­ing, whis­pered through his front gate.

A fe­male rel­a­tive of Ra­j­coomar, who wished to re­main uniden­ti­fied for fear of reprisal said her fam­i­ly were in shock fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent. "I still want to know why that man would just shoot at the chil­dren. Them chil­dren didn't do him any­thing," the rel­a­tive said.

Dur­ing the vis­it sev­er­al po­lice ve­hi­cles were seen comb­ing the streets of Gon­za­les and the neigh­bour­ing com­mu­ni­ties in search of the sus­pect. The rel­a­tives said that she was shocked by the crime sit­u­a­tion that was plagu­ing the Gon­za­les area. She called on po­lice to in­sti­tute more pa­trols in the com­mu­ni­ty.

ASP Ajith Per­sad and In­sp Er­ic Parks are prob­ing Ra­j­coomar's shoot­ing.