Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Ag), Mc Don­ald Ja­cob, has com­mend­ed what he de­scribes as “the painstak­ing and metic­u­lous work” of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions, fol­low­ing the re­cent ar­rest of four sus­pects—ISH­MAEL SALAAM, DUSTIN DI­AZ, JOEL FER­MIN and SHAQUILLE ROW­LEY—in con­nec­tion with sev­er­al mur­ders.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment, the top cop notes the Po­lice Ser­vice has en­gaged in train­ing for of­fi­cers in its Homi­cide Di­vi­sion.

“Over the last year, a lot of em­pha­sis has been placed on train­ing and de­vel­op­ment of our Homi­cide De­tec­tives. In Oc­to­ber, of­fi­cers par­tic­i­pat­ed in a week-long Ad­vanced Homi­cide In­ves­ti­ga­tions Train­ing Pro­gramme, through a part­ner­ship with the U.S. Em­bassy,” Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er Ja­cob said in the state­ment.

He re­vealed that apart from en­hanc­ing the skills and ex­per­tise of de­tec­tives, the TTPS al­so is util­is­ing bal­lis­tic and foren­sic tech­nolo­gies to as­sist in solv­ing homi­cide cas­es.

“While tech­nol­o­gy is im­por­tant, the hu­man el­e­ment of in­ves­ti­ga­tions is cru­cial, so I re­it­er­ate the call to the pub­lic to say some­thing when they see some­thing,” he added.

The four mur­der sus­pects were charged on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day, fol­low­ing the ad­vice of Deputy Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, George Bus­by.

ISH­MAEL SALAAM, 24, a Fyz­abad res­i­dent, will an­swer to two counts of Mur­der, one count of Rob­bery with Vi­o­lence, and two counts of Wound­ing with In­tent to Cause Griev­ous Bod­i­ly Harm.  His charges stem from an at­tempt­ed rob­bery at Pen­ny­wise Cos­met­ics, La Ro­maine on Sep­tem­ber 19, 2022, which re­sult­ed in the deaths of Jef­frey Pe­ters and Jer­ry Stew­art and the wound­ing of a third per­son. Oth­er per­sons are ex­pect­ed to be joint­ly charged with him in con­nec­tion with the in­ci­dent.

DUSTIN DI­AZ, 30, of Cunu­pia was charged with Mur­der, Pos­ses­sion of a Firearm with In­tent and Pos­ses­sion of Am­mu­ni­tion with In­tent. His charges stem from the mur­der of Ed­win ‘Con­queror’ Joseph, who was fa­tal­ly shot on June 7, 2022, in the Pe­tit Val­ley area.

JOEL FER­MIN, 39, and his step­son SHAQUILLE ROW­LEY, 22, both of Ro­main Lands, Mon Re­pos, were charged on No­vem­ber 4, 2022, with the mur­der of 47-year-old Noel Fer­min. On Oc­to­ber 29, 2022, Noel Fer­min was found by of­fi­cers who re­spond­ed to a re­port of shoot­ing at Up­per Hill­side Road, Mon Re­pos Road, Mor­vant, with what ap­peared to be gun­shot wounds. He was tak­en to the Port of Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he lat­er suc­cumbed to his in­juries.