Camille Clarke

Bul­lets flew in two sep­a­rate com­mu­ni­ties yes­ter­day, re­sult­ing in the deaths of two teenagers and the in­jury of one po­lice of­fi­cer.In the case that drew the most at­ten­tion, two cousins were shot dead by the po­lice dur­ing an al­leged shootout yes­ter­day af­ter­noon at Su­perville Hill, Mor­vant.Ha­keem, 16, and Tevin Alexan­der, 15, of Leza­ma Trace, Chi­napoo Vil­lage, were tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal nurs­ing gun­shot in­juries af­ter the shootout but were pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.

Ha­keem rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the Carif­ta Games last year and Tevin was a Form Three stu­dent at Bel­mont Boys' Sec­ondary.Po­lice said they were re­spond­ing to a call about gun­shots and heav­i­ly armed men in the area when they en­coun­tered three peo­ple, in­clud­ing the two youths, as they ar­rived at the scene. One man was armed with a shot­gun while the youths had hand­guns, they said.

Of­fi­cers said one of the men ran through a track while one of the two youths opened fire on them. The oth­er youth al­so opened fire and at­tempt­ed to run through the track. The of­fi­cers said they re­turned fire and the two youth sus­pects were in­jured.They were lat­er tak­en to the hos­pi­tal where they suc­cumbed to their in­juries. Two re­volvers were re­cov­ered at the scene.

Po­lice said the Alexan­ders were want­ed for at­tempt­ed mur­der, break­ing and en­ter­ing, sex­u­al as­sault and lar­ce­ny of a ve­hi­cle. The sus­pect who es­caped was al­so want­ed, po­lice said.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, an eye­wit­ness dis­put­ed the po­lice ac­count of what oc­curred."The po­lice tell them to go on their knees and put their hands up. They ask them where they come from and they ain't give them time to say noth­ing and they put bul­lets in their bel­ly.

"I say that is an in­jus­tice and start to make noise. All you not sup­posed to do that. The po­lice that was there look up and he look at me and let go some bul­lets at my house like if that was me he would waste me the same way. He rid­dled the boy af­ter that and gone."

Lisa De Leon-Alexan­der, Tevin's moth­er, said her son was in­no­cent and was go­ing to see his grand­par­ents on the hill at the time he was killed."If they do some­thing talk to the par­ents," she said. "The chil­dren dropped to their knees and begged for their lives and you still kill them. They ain't search them or check them. All you buss my child skin if he was do­ing any­thing wrong."She said her aunt, who lived near where the shoot­ing oc­curred, saw the in­ci­dent and begged for her nephews.

"She was beg­ging for her nephews and they turn the gun on her. That is be­yond out­ra­geous. 'Cause some­body who see­ing you do some­thing wrong is beg­ging you not to do it as a hu­man be­ing and you still do it."

De Leon-Alexan­der said Tevin was un­able to go to school be­cause she had no mon­ey to send him."They (po­lice) are trained to pro­tect and serve us but they kill us. They (boys) not in noth­ing. They were run­ning from a man who was shoot­ing be­hind them be­cause he wants them to turn to Mus­lim. What part of my child, if he wants to turn to Je­sus Christ and not Mus­lim, you should shoot him?" The moth­er de­nied Tevin was want­ed by the po­lice or known to the po­lice.

Hen­ry Alexan­der, Ha­keem's fa­ther, said his son was a na­tion­al ath­lete. Point­ing to a host of medals and tro­phies, he said his son had been laid off be­cause he was ill for over a week but he had man­aged to ne­go­ti­ate with the boy's em­ploy­er to re­hire him.

"I call him (Ha­keem) and say the boss­man want­ed him to check him and he will get back the work," he said.

"Then I heard there was a fight-up and the po­lice shoot them. I did now come from down the is­lands and they say po­lice shoot them. I sur­prise to hear po­lice shoot him in the head and the cousin... he break the na­tion­al record in school."Hen­ry said his son want­ed to re­turn to school (Suc­cess/Laven­tille Com­pos­ite) and con­tin­ue his ca­reer to be­come a pro­fes­sion­al ath­lete.

Boys no saints

Res­i­dents at Wal­lace Road claimed the two boys were not in­no­cent and they had com­plained about them nu­mer­ous times.One res­i­dent, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said the two youths, along with two oth­er men, planned to am­bush a rel­a­tive of hers and he bare­ly es­caped with his life.

"They liv­ing up there and we liv­ing down here. I don't know what they war­ring we for. They used to be here lim­ing and drink­ing to­geth­er. It was all of them," she said.

"I told him (her rel­a­tive) not to go be­cause they shot up the house on Fri­day. I was wait­ing to give him mon­ey and when he come I hear him quar­rel­ing and bleed­ing plen­ty," she said point­ing to gun­shots at the house.

She added: "The same one who they say is an ath­lete, his moth­er talk to him, his grand­moth­er talk to him, fa­ther talk, aunt talk. Every­body talk to him. What go­ing on with he?"She claimed they had Zion (Wal­lace Road) hot with il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.

Po­lice­man shot in leg

Po­lice were up to last evening search­ing Cameron Hill, Pe­tit Val­ley, for gun­men who shot a col­league.The con­sta­ble was shot in the leg af­ter the of­fi­cers re­spond­ed to a re­port of a kid­nap­ping in Mar­aval. Of­fi­cers of the West­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force went to Cameron Hill around 3 pm as they fol­lowed leads but when they got there their path­way was blocked by de­bris.

PC Ja­son Clement and some oth­er col­leagues got out of their ve­hi­cle to re­move the de­bris when they were fired up­on. He was shot in the right leg. The gun­men es­caped in near­by bush­es.

Al­so last night, po­lice were al­so search­ing the com­pound of the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen mosque in Cara­po and sur­round­ing hous­es dur­ing a raid for arms and am­mu­ni­tion.