Jensen La Vende

Al­though there have been sev­er­al threats made to the Alex­is fam­i­ly, rel­a­tives said yes­ter­day there would be no reprisals for the mur­der of Mervyn Alex­is, 46, the younger broth­er of re­put­ed gang leader Sel­wyn "Robo­cop" Alex­is, 50.

The younger Alex­is was gunned down on Sun­day night as he stood along Rail­way Road, En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas, one street away from where his old­er broth­er was killed five months ago, al­so on a Sun­day.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, a white Nis­san Wingroad pulled up around 10 pm Sun­day and three men got out and shot Alex­is in the head and body be­fore jump­ing back in­to the car and es­cap­ing.

The old­er Alex­is, de­scribed as a crime lord in the com­mu­ni­ty, was at his busi­ness place along Free­dom Street on Ju­ly 17 when he was con­front­ed by a man known to him and there was a shootout.

In the end, Alex­is was dead along with his long time friend, Kevin Es­cayg, and the duo's killer, Thomas "Hamza" Sharpe. Es­cayg's son was shot in the stom­ach and Alex­is man­aged to save his grand­daugh­ter from be­ing shot by shov­ing her out of the way.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian at the fam­i­ly's busi­ness along South­ern Main Road yes­ter­day, two of Sel­wyn's chil­dren – Keron and Katisha – said their un­cle's death was due to jeal­ousy and mal­ice.

They added, how­ev­er, that they would not be chased out of the area by cow­ards who would sneak up on an un­armed man they knew was not in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

The duo said af­ter their fa­ther was killed the coun­try was brac­ing for a reprisal and close to five months lat­er there had been no such fall­out and there would not be any now ei­ther.

"Af­ter my un­cle get killed they sent a text to my moth­er phone say­ing 'One gone, bye bye'. They fire­bombed my broth­er's house, shoot up a broth­er's car, sent threats for the whole fam­i­ly and we ain't do noth­ing," Keron said.

"I re­alise I have to be the big­ger man and say enough is enough. I have pa­tience. I will­ing to work with the po­lice and help them."

He said the killers had been tim­ing the po­lice pa­trols and knew when they would be able to strike as the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion had de­plet­ed re­sources with the trans­fer­ring of some of­fi­cers last week. The killings of the Alex­is broth­ers was be­ing placed on the Un­ruly Isis gang.

Dur­ing a tour of the En­ter­pise area fol­low­ing the killing of Robo­cop in Ju­ly, Mervyn Alex­is had spo­ken to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon, say­ing to solve crime in the area there would need to be a po­lice and peo­ple part­ner­ship.

Since then there have been two town meet­ings in the area in­volv­ing act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams.

Yes­ter­day, Keron Alex­is called on Williams to vis­it the com­mu­ni­ty again to help end the blood­shed.

MUR­DER VIDEO GOES VI­RAL

Mean­while, in two un­re­lat­ed mur­ders, po­lice ar­rest­ed two men who were held short­ly af­ter a con­fronta­tion with a man along the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route, Curepe, on Fri­day night.

The two men were video­taped by a pass­er-by ac­cus­ing Lall Dwari­ka of steal­ing from them. One man hit Dwari­ka in the head with a piece of iron and when he col­lapsed the men rum­maged through his cloth­ing. The men then fled but were chased by a uni­formed po­lice of­fi­cer and ap­pre­hend­ed. Po­lice said the in­ci­dent took place around 9 pm and Dwari­ka died at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex one hour lat­er. The video was re­leased on so­cial me­dia and has since gone vi­ral.

In the oth­er killing, po­lice are seek­ing to iden­ti­fy the body of an East In­di­an male par­tial­ly wrapped in a sheet at Sama­roo Vil­lage, Ari­ma. Po­lice said res­i­dents saw the body around 9 am and called po­lice. The man's was wear­ing a red, white and blue T-shirt, blue jeans pants and plaid box­er shorts.