KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

One day af­ter po­lice iden­ti­fied 21-year-old Kei­thisha Cud­joe as the lat­est woman to be mur­dered in 2022, some­one shot a San Fer­nan­do moth­er of two af­ter she left for work yes­ter­day.

Sali­na Mo­hammed, 40, died less than 24 hours be­fore her daugh­ter cel­e­brat­ed her 16th birth­day.

Mo­hammed had just left her home at Palmiste Bend to work at Ma­rine Out­board along In­de­pen­dence Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do. 

Po­lice said that at 8.05 am her sil­ver Nis­san Wingroad wag­on was ob­served a short dis­tance from her home at a stand­still with a male per­son stand­ing on the road­way near to the front pas­sen­ger door.

Re­ports in­di­cate that they ap­peared to be en­gaged in a con­ver­sa­tion.

Po­lice said that as Mo­hammed’s ve­hi­cle sud­den­ly sped off, three loud ex­plo­sions were heard and a male per­son ran along the road­way and en­tered an­oth­er ve­hi­cle which drove away.

Res­i­dents found Mo­hammed’s blood­ied body slumped in the dri­ver’s seat.

It ap­peared the wag­on rolled in­to the wall af­ter her killer shot her.

Supt Sean Dhilpaul and In­sp Ma­haraj led in­ves­ti­ga­tors from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions: Re­gion Three to the mur­der scene.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors ini­tial­ly sus­pect­ed a rob­bery as they could not find Mo­hammed’s bag con­tain­ing her iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards but were search­ing for oth­er leads.

Salina Mohammed

They said it ap­peared her killer stood out­side the car and shot her. While a Guardian Me­dia news team was at her home, St Mar­garet’s po­lice of­fi­cers came to drop off her purse, say­ing that some­one found it in Clax­ton Bay and dropped it off at the po­lice sta­tion.

Af­ter learn­ing of Mo­hammed’s death, the of­fi­cers took it in­to cus­tody.

Though re­luc­tant to speak, Mo­hammed’s broth­er Shane said a neigh­bour called him with news that his sis­ter got shot a short dis­tance away from their home.

When he ar­rived, she was al­ready dead. Based on what he knew, no one threat­ened to kill Mo­hammed, and he could not think of any rea­son why some­one want­ed her dead.

Rel­a­tives and fam­i­ly friends sur­round­ed their moth­er, See­ta, at home while Mo­hammed’s chil­dren stayed in­side the house that she and her hus­band were build­ing.

See­ta, a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ac­tivist, was too dis­traught to speak. She sat mourn­ful­ly out­side her home as rel­a­tives pre­pared for a wake.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, who lives in the com­mu­ni­ty, told Guardian Me­dia that she heard three ex­plo­sions while en­gag­ing in a vir­tu­al court ses­sion but did not know they were gun­shots.

Lutch­me­di­al lat­er saw news of the mur­der in the com­mu­ni­ty What­sApp group chat. She said the neigh­bour­hood was trau­ma­tised as res­i­dents were used to pet­ty crimes, but noth­ing as heinous as mur­der.

“It seems as though there was some­one who am­bushed the de­ceased this morn­ing. A young woman, very sad­ly, has lost her life this morn­ing go­ing to work. Her fam­i­ly, of course, is very dis­traught and the neigh­bour­hood is very trau­ma­tised be­cause it is close to all of us where we live. It is a very qui­et neigh­bour­hood, not some­thing that we usu­al­ly have,” Lutch­me­di­al said.

Seeta Mohammed, centre, mother of Salina Mohammed, is consoled by Senator Jayanti Lutchmedial and Les Effort West Councillor Rishi Balramsingh, after her daughter was shot and killed after leaving her home at Palmiste Bend, Gulf View, San Fernando, yesterday.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Neigh­bours are now dis­cussing crime in San Fer­nan­do and are con­sid­er­ing pay­ing for pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty to pa­trol the streets with the in­crease in gun vi­o­lence.

Lutch­me­di­al said the po­lice pres­ence in the com­mu­ni­ty was not enough, and it was time for that to change.

Re­call­ing the brazen dou­ble mur­der at South Park Mall, San Fer­nan­do, last week, Lutch­me­di­al said the lev­el of gun vi­o­lence was scar­ing res­i­dents. Per­son­al­ly, she felt fright­ened as the mur­der hap­pened near her home. 

“The preva­lence of gun vi­o­lence. It is be­com­ing a lit­tle too preva­lent, and I think the res­i­dents are now start­ing to feel like it is lit­er­al­ly at their doorsteps. That time of the morn­ing, a lot of peo­ple would have been com­ing out to work and dri­ving out. This car that these mur­der­ers would have been in could have just passed by any of us com­ing in and out of our hous­es this morn­ing, so it is scary.”

While Lutch­me­di­al hopes all wit­ness­es co­op­er­ate with the po­lice, she said the coun­try needs more Closed Cir­cuit Tele­vi­sion (CCTV) cam­eras to help solve crimes quick­ly and get con­vic­tions.

She said the UNC has been rais­ing the is­sue of con­tracts for CCTV cam­eras and while the Gov­ern­ment de­lays, cit­i­zens are mur­dered.

And while women con­tin­ue to fall prey to mur­der­ers, Lutch­me­di­al said the Gov­ern­ment leg­is­lat­ed the use of pep­per spray, but women still do not have this pro­tec­tion. 

Coun­cil­lor of Les Ef­forts West/ La Ro­maine Rishi Bal­ram­s­ingh said crim­i­nals have no re­gard for lives.

Bal­ram­s­ingh, who knows the fam­i­ly, said the Gov­ern­ment was spend­ing $30 mil­lion on Car­ni­val but should al­lo­cate this mon­ey to the Po­lice Ser­vice to in­crease its crime-fight­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

Salina Mohammed family speaks to a police officer at Palmiste Bend, Gulf View, San Fernando, after she was shot and killed while leaving home driving her car.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

“We are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the grant­i­ng of Firearm User Li­cens­es for those who are try­ing to pro­tect them­selves be­cause the Gov­ern­ment is not do­ing it for them. Why don’t we in­vest that time, en­er­gy, ef­fort and re­sources in pulling firearms and guns off the streets that are tak­ing the lives of in­no­cent peo­ple? I call on the Gov­ern­ment to step up be­cause Trinidad & To­ba­go is col­laps­ing,” Bal­ram­s­ingh said.