Alexander: Killers exploiting loopholes in policing

Killers are using loopholes in police patrols to strike their targets, vice-president of the Police Service Social and Welfare Association, Insp Roger Alexander told the T&T Guardian yesterday. Police simply cannot be everywhere they would like to be, said Alexander, commenting on the seven people killed over the weekend and a developing trend of multiple murders on weekends. According to real-time crime-tracker website Bullet Points, for the last three weekends there were more than five people killed each weekend. 

Some killings, though unclassified, had personal motives, which are difficult to track or prevent, Alexander said. When contacted yesterday, acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams said he had just returned to T&T and would not want to comment without first confirming the murder statistics over the past weekends. 

Between Friday and yesterday seven people were killed, including Dayron Baker, 13, who was killed mere metres from his Cizan Trace home in Diego Martin on Friday night and Lisa Espinoza, 52, who was shot in the back while she and her husband Ramesh Ramdeo were paying wages. The weekend before that seven people had been killed and six the previous weekend.