Kevon Felmine

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of Corinth Hills were left cow­er­ing un­der gun­fire on Sun­day morn­ing af­ter gun­men sprayed bul­lets at an apart­ment com­plex in San Fer­nan­do, shat­ter­ing win­dows, pierc­ing homes and in­jur­ing an off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer.

The dri­ve-by shoot­ing, which res­i­dents said was the sec­ond in the com­mu­ni­ty this year, al­so left an­oth­er res­i­dent in­jured and reignit­ed fears among fam­i­lies al­ready shak­en by pre­vi­ous vi­o­lence.

Po­lice said the shoot­ing oc­curred around 7.30 am along Le­an­der Lane when a gun­man in a white Nis­san Ti­i­da al­leged­ly drove past and opened fire on a group of men lim­ing near a car wash op­er­at­ing on the com­pound.

The rapid burst of gun­fire sent res­i­dents and by­standers scram­bling for cov­er as the ve­hi­cle sped away from the scene. Dur­ing the chaos, a 32-year-old res­i­dent of an­oth­er build­ing was in­jured af­ter re­port­ed­ly falling while try­ing to es­cape the gun­fire.

An off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer, who was al­so at the car wash at the time, was grazed on the head by a bul­let. Nei­ther the of­fi­cer nor the in­jured res­i­dent was at home when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the area yes­ter­day.

Both men were treat­ed for mi­nor in­juries at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

The at­tack left vis­i­ble dam­age at the apart­ment com­pound, with shat­tered win­dows and bul­let marks on parts of the build­ing. Res­i­dents said the shoot­ing has deep­ened fears with­in the com­mu­ni­ty, with some now afraid to ven­ture out­side their homes.

Sev­er­al res­i­dents re­called an­oth­er shoot­ing in­ci­dent ear­li­er this year. They said gun­shots rang out around 4.30 am some­time in Jan­u­ary while most peo­ple were asleep. Al­though po­lice re­spond­ed and con­duct­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tions at the time, res­i­dents said they were un­aware of whether any­one had been ar­rest­ed.

One res­i­dent said she had just re­turned home from a wake around 7.30 am and was prepar­ing to go to sleep when she heard loud ex­plo­sions out­side. Mo­ments lat­er, a bul­let pierced her win­dow and shat­tered the mir­ror on her wardrobe, send­ing glass splin­ters on­to her face. Po­lice have since launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the lat­est at­tack.