Four men cornered a 22-year-old Morvant man on Tuesday night and executed him.
According to police reports, around 10.30 pm Kareem "Scooby" Samuel, of Roaming Lands, Morvant, was travelling in a white Nissan Tiida along the old St Joseph Road when on reaching Wharton Street, four gunmen came out of a car that pulled in front the one he was in and opened fire.
Samuel was killed and the driver, Mattias Williams, 34, was injured. Police said prior to the shooting, a young woman jumped out of the car and ran.
Speaking with the media at the Forensic Science Centre, St James, yesterday, Samuel's mother, Gertrude Hector, said Tuesday's shooting was the fourth attempt on his life. She said her son was killed for telling gunmen who wanted to show up at a construction site and not do work that they could not be paid for doing nothing.
A close friend of Samuel's, Sean "Drugs" Joseph, 42, was killed while liming at a bar near his Mon Repos, Morvant, home on September 21 last year. Since then, Hector said, her son had two other attempts on his life, the first being in July last year followed by one in December last year and a third attempt last month, when a man approached him with a sub-machine gun. She said Joseph was killed for not hiring the killers after he got a contract to erect a wall in the area
Hector said she last spoke to her son on the phone just before he died and he told her not to worry as he was on his way home. She said her son had gone to meet a girl he met at a concert recently and was on his way home from buying food when he was killed. She said Samuel was not involved in any criminal activity.
Hector said she is now a Jehovah's Witness and is leaving everything in the hands of Jehovah. She said her son was marked for death and believed that he was followed from his home and executed.
Samuel's death and that of three other men took the murder toll to 407 for the year. Yesterday, Deputy Commissioner of Police Wayne Dick, at the weekly press briefing, said all is being done to bring the perpetrators of murder to justice.