An­na-Lisa Paul

An ar­gu­ment over a foot­ball match turned dead­ly for a 19-year-old stu­dent on Tues­day af­ter he was chopped dur­ing an al­ter­ca­tion with a man he knew. Pe­ter Richards, a Form Six stu­dent of the To­co Com­pos­ite School died less than half-an-hour af­ter he was at­tacked. Richards, of Ceme­tery Street, died at the To­co Emer­gency Health Fa­cil­i­ty around 8.30 pm. His killer was ar­rest­ed at the To­co Po­lice Sta­tion while mak­ing a re­port about the in­ci­dent. Up to last night, the 23-year-old sus­pect re­mained in po­lice cus­tody.

Se­nior of­fi­cers yes­ter­day said a file was be­ing pre­pared to be sent to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, Roger Gas­pard. Around 8 pm on Tues­day, Richards was play­ing foot­ball with sev­er­al friends in the area when an ar­gu­ment broke out. Richards and his at­tack­er had to be sep­a­rat­ed as the con­fronta­tion turned phys­i­cal. The T&T Guardian learned Richards' at­tack­er left the scene but was fol­lowed by Richards and an­oth­er man.

It is al­leged that Richards and the sec­ond man be­gan taunt­ing the sus­pect and al­so threw stones at him. It was al­so re­port­ed that dur­ing this sec­ond con­fronta­tion, Richards' at­tack­er pulled out a cut­lass and chopped him once on the neck, then ran away. Even as he was be­ing tak­en to hos­pi­tal, the sus­pect went to the po­lice sta­tion and hand­ed over the cut­lass to po­lice. He was lat­er ar­rest­ed af­ter news of Richards' death.

The school's for­mer foot­ball coach, Joseph Brew­ster, said Richards ear­li­er in the day ac­com­pa­nied the school team to a friend­ly in­ter-school com­pe­ti­tion in El Do­ra­do and ap­peared to be in good spir­its. Richards' killing brought the mur­der toll to 307 for the year. Po­lice who vis­it­ed the scene in­clud­ed In­sp Paul, Sgt Gopaul and PC Ramjohn. Cpl Kips­ingh is in­ves­ti­gat­ing.