Rhon­dor Dowlat

Po­lice have de­scribed a gun at­tack at a birth­day par­ty in Freeport as botched hit, as the in­tend­ed tar­get sur­vived with life-sav­ing in­juries.

Three of his guests were killed and two oth­ers in­jured.

The in­tend­ed tar­get, ac­cord­ing to in­ves­ti­gat­ing po­lice of­fi­cers, was Daniel Spencer, who was cel­e­brat­ing his 25th birth­day at his small wood­en home at Com­mon­wealth Dri­ve, Nel­son Road. The in­ci­dent oc­curred at 12.30 am.

The de­ceased were iden­ti­fied as: El­ton Ar­mor­er, 35; Michael Kent Brown, 25 and Win­ston Ed­wards, 39. The wound­ed were iden­ti­fied as: Spencer, his girl­friend Me­li­ka Davis, 20 and one of Spencer's guest, Ronald Earl, 31.

T&T Guardian was told the shoot­ing was linked to the mur­der Kurt Fran­cis, 27, who was fa­tal­ly shot in the head while at Ca­paro on De­cem­ber 30. That mur­der oc­curred at 11.10 pm Fran­cis lived at Are­na Road in Freeport.

How­ev­er, speak­ing with the T&T Guardian while at Spencer's home yes­ter­day a close friend, who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said he knew that Spencer's house was shot at by gun­men some time last year. He said Spencer of­ten got in trou­ble with the law for fight­ing and oth­er things, which he chose not to dis­close.

"Gen­er­al­ly, he was a cool and nor­mal fel­la but loved to drink, lime and par­ty. Every week­end would be a par­ty and go­ing out thing for him," the friend said.

Spencer's sis­ter, Rachel, who stopped by to col­lect clothes for her broth­er said that he was un­der­go­ing surgery at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

An­oth­er rel­a­tive, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied said that as a re­sult of "many at­tempts/at­tacks" on his life, Spencer in­stalled sur­veil­lance cam­eras - one was seen tied on to a light pole just in front of the yard fac­ing the road and one fixed on the right hand cor­ner of the wood­en house fac­ing the en­try to the yard.

Po­lice of­fi­cers have tak­en the DVR for view­ing to see whether or not any­thing use­ful was record­ed that may be able to as­sist them in their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

An eye­wit­ness said he saw three men armed with guns run­ning through a ravine lo­cat­ed at the back of the house. "They pass on the road, through the bush­es and through the ravine to come up and shoot. They knew the sur­round­ings very well it seemed," he said.

Ac­cord­ing to an­oth­er eye­wit­ness, those shot were among a group of eleven who were sit­ting on a wall and drink­ing around 12.30 am when gun­shots rang out.

"We had our backs turned to the house and we were tak­ing a shot of Pun­cheon that Ar­mor­er bring up for Daniel for his birth­day when I just hear 'Paks, paks, paks' and I run," the man said.

"It look like they come up from be­hind the house but we didn't hear any­thing un­til they start­ed to shoot be­cause we was play­ing the mu­sic loud," he said.

He said he fell on his knees and thanked God for life, "I could have get shoot too, them men ain't care about no­body, they just shoot up the place and run."

Ar­mor­er, one of the men who was killed, in his last con­ver­sa­tion with his moth­er Ju­dith, promised to stay away from Nel­son Street, Freeport and turn his life around.

How­ev­er, Ar­mor­er's de­sire to cel­e­brate his friend's birth­day led him to the same street where he was killed along with his two friends.

When the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the scene yes­ter­day morn­ing, Ar­mor­er's blue Nis­san Almera car was still parked in front of Spencer's house and the bot­tle of Pun­cheon was still on the wall.

Ju­dith said she was still in shock over the death of her first son.

Ar­mor­er was a 'PH' taxi dri­ver and Ju­dith said he had told her he want­ed to pur­chase a new car this year.

"Just yes­ter­day (Tues­day) he came by me to cut the grass and the last con­ver­sa­tion I had with him was me telling him not to go in Nel­son Street and lime, I told him that area was bad news," she said.

"He told me 'Mam­my, I try­ing to change my life around. I done lim­ing with them fel­las.'"

She said she learnt of his death while on the way to the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port to pick up his fa­ther, El­ton Se­nior who was re­turn­ing from a va­ca­tion abroad.

"His fa­ther not tak­ing this good at all...El­ton (Ju­nior) was born on his birth­day so they usu­al­ly cel­e­brat­ed to­geth­er every year."

Brown's un­cle, De­o­dath See­baran said his nephew was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He said Brown and Ed­wards were close friends as they had grown up a stone's throw from each oth­er in Lime Fruit Road, Freeport.

Brown was a ma­son and lived with his com­mon-law wife, Rachel.

A rel­a­tive of Ed­wards, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied, said he was de­vot­ed to his two chil­dren, aged 12 and 15. She al­so de­scribed him as an ex­cep­tion­al child to his moth­er who has been ail­ing for some­time.

"He was a very at­ten­tive fa­ther, he treat­ed his chil­dren very well," the rel­a­tive said.

"He lived with his moth­er and grand­moth­er and would do every­thing for them.

"He used to cook meals for his moth­er and he re­al­ly stood by her in her time of need," Ed­wards' rel­a­tive said. She said he worked with a sub-con­trac­tor for WASA and was not in­volved in any gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty.

"He was not in­volved in any gang war­fare or as­so­ci­at­ed with any­thing like that. This was just a birth­day par­ty that he at­tend­ed and end­ed up be­ing in the wrong place at the wrong time."