Derek Achong

Even as 300 law en­force­ment of­fi­cers were in the hills of Laven­tille in an an­ti-crime ex­er­cise yes­ter­day, a 38-year-old taxi dri­ver was mur­dered and his two pas­sen­gers in­jured in a mid-morn­ing shoot­ing. In the ex­er­cise the po­lice seized three il­le­gal guns and a large quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion and drugs. Se­nior of­fi­cers said the op­er­a­tion was a suc­cess.

The raid, which in­volved 100 sol­diers and 200 po­lice of­fi­cers from var­i­ous di­vi­sions and units, be­gan at 4 am and end­ed at mid­day. Al­most six hours af­ter the ex­er­cise be­gan, Aasim LeMaitre, of Up­per Fran­cois Val­ley Road, Bel­mont, was ply­ing his car for hire along Laven­tille Road, when on reach­ing Leau Place, two gun­men be­gan to shoot at his ve­hi­cle.

Leme­tre and his pas­sen­gers–An­isha Ray, 20, of St Barb's, Laven­tille and her 17-year-old sis­ter Peni­ka–were wound­ed in the shoot­ing. Af­ter be­ing shot, LeMaitre went un­con­scious and his car veered to the side of the road, crash­ing in­to a wall. Of­fi­cers of the Port-of-Spain CID, led by ASP Ajith Per­sad, re­spond­ed and took them to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the team which was con­duct­ing the ex­er­cise was in an­oth­er com­mu­ni­ty in Laven­tille at the time of the shoot­ing. Lemaitre was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival at the in­sti­tu­tion, while An­isha, who was shot in her back and chest, un­der­went emer­gency surgery.

Peni­ka, a stu­dent at the Tran­quil­i­ty Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School, was grazed above the left eye. She was treat­ed and dis­charged yes­ter­day af­ter­noon but An­isha re­mained ward­ed in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion. In­ves­ti­ga­tors had not es­tab­lished a mo­tive for the shoot­ing up to late yes­ter­day. With less than a day to the end of Jan­u­ary, the mur­der toll for the year stood at 33 late yes­ter­day.

Of the 33 mur­ders, 15 took place in the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion. For the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od last year the fig­ure was 38. Po­lice sources said the ex­er­cise was or­gan­ised af­ter a meet­ing be­tween se­nior of­fi­cers of the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion and the top brass of the Po­lice Ser­vice on Mon­day af­ter­noon.

The meet­ing, a source said, was held by act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams and DCP Mervyn Richard­son in re­sponse to a re­cent up­surge in se­ri­ous crimes and mur­ders in Laven­tille and east Port-of-Spain. Oth­er ini­tia­tives aris­ing out of the meet­ing are ex­pect­ed to be im­ple­ment­ed lat­er this week and ear­ly next month.

Mean­while, a to­tal of 56 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed for var­i­ous of­fences dur­ing the ex­er­cise. While search­ing homes in the area yes­ter­day, the law­men re­cov­ered a Ruger ri­fle, a shot­gun and a .45 cal­i­bre pis­tol as well as 87 rounds of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion. They al­so seized an army cam­ou­flage uni­form and hel­met, ten ki­los of mar­i­jua­na and 100 grammes of co­caine.

The ex­er­cise was co-or­di­nat­ed by Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dents Wayne Boyd and Carl­ton Al­leyne. It was led by In­sp Sa­hadeo Singh and in­clud­ed Cpls Charles Bu­drie and Sir­ju.