The brazen killing of Ian "Tin Man" Stan­ley, a promi­nent Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty leader along Wright­son Road in Port-of-Spain, left the city in traf­fic grid­lock yes­ter­day.

It was one of six mur­ders which took place with­in 20 hours yes­ter­day, from Port-of-Spain to Cara­pichaima, to San Juan and Cou­va.

Af­ter Stan­ley, of Farm Road, Rich Plain, Diego Mar­tin, was killed in his car in front of the Femmes du Chalet (Break­fast Shed) around 10.10 am, ve­hi­cles were backed up along Wright­son Road as po­lice cor­doned off the crime scene and a wreck­er was on the site to lat­er re­move Stan­ley's ve­hi­cle. Al­though po­lice could be seen di­rect­ing traf­fic along Wright­son Road, mo­torists head­ing West were stuck in their ve­hi­cles for long pe­ri­ods.

Traf­fic al­so crawled along In­de­pen­dence Square and stretched as far back as the Beetham on the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way.

Ian "Tin Man" Stanley.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said that Stan­ley was dri­ving a Volk­swa­gen reg­is­tra­tion num­ber PCT 9934 on the west­bound lane of Wright­son Road when on reach­ing the walkover, a sil­ver Nis­san AD Wag­on reg­is­tra­tion num­ber un­known pulled along­side him and oc­cu­pants fired sev­er­al shots in his di­rec­tion be­fore dri­ving off.

His body was slumped be­hind the wheel. His car crashed in­to an iron bar­ri­cade out­side the Break­fast Shed by the in­ter­sec­tion.

Of­fi­cers of the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion went to the scene with fire of­fi­cers and ob­served the de­ceased with gun­shot wounds about the body.

Po­lice said Stan­ley was the leader of the Uni­ty Road, Rich Plain gang which was war­ring against the Up­per Rich Plain Road Gang for sev­er­al years.

Po­lice are brac­ing for reprisals.

The shooting on Wrightson Road caused gridlock traffic on Independence Square, Port-of-Spain, yesterday.

KERWIN PIERRE

Mean­while, 48-year-old Gillian Lewis was shot and killed in Irv­ing Street, San Juan, dur­ing the pre-dawn hours.

One of her sons was among the two killed on Thurs­day night.

The po­lice said the killers came back and shot the oth­er son, 25. How­ev­er, he was wound­ed and tak­en to the hos­pi­tal for med­ical treat­ment.

Po­lice al­so said the gun­men got in­for­ma­tion that Lewis was around and re­turned and killed her.

Lewis' daugh­ter Kezia told Guardian Me­dia that her moth­er was a lov­ing per­son.

“You would have to re­al­ly push her. She was al­ways smil­ing, she loved my daugh­ter dear­ly, my daugh­ter loved her dear­ly, the same way...She was not a per­son that keeps a lot in­side be­fore she even comes out and says all is well. God knows best,” she said cry­ing.

In the in­ci­dent in­volv­ing Lewis' son, sev­en men were lim­ing and play­ing a game of cards at a house in Pe­tit Bourg, San Juan, when they were am­bushed by gun­men on Thurs­day night.

Lewis' son was killed on the scene while an­oth­er man died at hos­pi­tal. The vic­tims were An­tho­ny Richards, 27 and Nikoli Mc­Don­ald, 20. Five oth­ers were shot and wound­ed in the in­ci­dent.

Dillon Straughn.

In a sep­a­rate in­ci­dent, 24-year-old Dil­lon Straughn, a labour­er from Per­se­ver­ance Vil­lage, Cara­pichaima, was shot dead ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing by a res­i­dent with his shot­gun. Straughn was al­leged­ly caught steal­ing ca­bles in Bank Vil­lage when res­i­dents called on him and oth­ers to stop. The shoot­ing in­ci­dent oc­curred short­ly af­ter.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, the two oth­er ac­com­plices, a 17 year old of Chase Vil­lage and a 16 year old of Per­se­ver­ance Vil­lage were al­so shot and in­jured.

The dri­ver of the ve­hi­cle fled the scene, leav­ing the dead man and his ac­com­plices be­hind.

Around 4.35 am the po­lice re­spond­ed to a re­port of some­one be­ing shot at Bank Vil­lage and found the body.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.

Sheldon "Cocky" Coutain.

Shirley Bahadur

A man was gunned down while dri­ving his car along Pic­ton Street in Wood­brook yes­ter­day evening.

Po­lice said pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tions iden­ti­fied the vic­tim as 39-year-old Shel­don Coutain alias Cocky who was known as the Ras­ta City gang leader of St Fran­cois Val­ley Road in Bel­mont. Coutain was well known to the po­lice and had drug, firearm and rob­bery charges pend­ing.

Up to late last night, the po­lice were at the scene of a home in­va­sion at Mc Bean Vil­lage in Cou­va, near the Rien­zi Com­plex.

Po­lice said at about 8 pm men mov­ing in a black Au­di drove straight in­to the yard of a res­i­dent where they gunned down a male oc­cu­pant, Joel Fer­nan­dez.

Guardian Me­dia was told that the vic­tim along with a fe­male rel­a­tive was well known as he sold sneak­ers in the area.

Po­lice are al­so search­ing for two men who robbed and shot a man in the fore­head dur­ing a home in­va­sion in White­land yes­ter­day. Daniel John­son, 57, was ini­tial­ly ward­ed in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, but died last night.

A re­port stat­ed that at around 1.15 am, two men armed with guns en­tered John­son’s home at Par­adise Av­enue. They went in­to his bed­room and robbed him of $42,000. They shot him on their way out.

His 17-year-old son who was in the oth­er room found his fa­ther ly­ing in a pool of blood. Gas­par­il­lo po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.

–Re­port­ing by Raphael John Lall and Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant