RALPH BAN­WARIE

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

A 20-year-old Ma­yaro man died af­ter be­ing shot while walk­ing along a track to his friend's home on Sat­ur­day night.

Re­nal­do Her­minez suc­cumbed to his in­juries 45 min­utes af­ter be­ing shot while re­ceiv­ing med­ical at­ten­tion at the Ma­yaro Health Fa­cil­i­ty.

Her­minez lived at St Ann's Hill West, Ma­yaro, with his broth­er Brade­ly Tees­dale.

Her­minez's killing damp­ened the Christ­mas spir­it of his fam­i­ly and the com­mu­ni­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­port, around 9.45 pm on Sat­ur­day, Her­minez was walk­ing along a track south off the St Ann's Road, Ma­yaro, when he was ap­proached by an armed man who was dressed in dark cloth­ing. The man shot at Her­minez, who fell to the ground. The sus­pect was then fled on foot.

PCs Ramkissoon, Sarab­jit and WPC Ali re­spond­ed and took Her­minez to the Ma­yaro Health Fa­cil­i­ty where he re­ceived med­ical at­ten­tion. How­ev­er, he died 45 min­utes lat­er. Dr Ben­jamin made a pro­nounce­ment and or­dered the body be re­moved pend­ing a post­mortem ex­am­i­na­tion at the Foren­sic Sci­ences Cen­tre, St James, on Wednes­day.

Vis­it­ing the scene were Sgt De La Rosa, PCs Ram­dass, Guy and Loubon, of Ma­yaro Po­lice Sta­tion, and Sgt Ram­sa­hai, PC Gil­lead and WPC Tim­o­thy, of the Homi­cide Bu­reau. PC Nan­coo and WPC Por­tel, of the San­gre Grande CSI, processed the scene. One car­tidge wadding was found at the scene.

Of­fi­cers at­tached to Homi­cide Bu­reau are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.

Her­minez's killing has pushed the mur­der toll to 557 for the year.