JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, July 20, 2025

Traffic shooting victim under police guard

Annisette: My son's no gangster

by

Shaliza Hassanali
2440 days ago
20181113

An on­go­ing war be­tween the Ras­ta City and Mus­lim gangs led to the ear­ly morn­ing shoot­ing of Dwayne King, whose life re­mained in the bal­ance at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal up to last night.

This was re­vealed by King’s fa­ther, Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union pres­i­dent gen­er­al Michael An­nisette, who spoke to Guardian Me­dia last night mo­ments af­ter vis­it­ing his son, who un­der­went a marathon surgery to save his life and was un­der the watch­ful eyes of armed po­lice of­fi­cers fol­low­ing the pro­ce­dure.

An­nisette plead­ed with the war­ring gangs to put down their guns and stop the blood­shed sweep­ing our land, say­ing it was time they come to a truce.

“I am al­ways will­ing to sit down and talk to young black peo­ple in terms of the way of life, be­cause I think I have enough ex­pe­ri­ence,” An­nisette said.

King, 40, was shot in his chest, groin, shoul­der and left hand by masked gun­men who opened fire on him as he sat in his Nis­san Ti­i­da in rush hour traf­fic on the Beetham High­way around 8.32 am yes­ter­day. The gun­men fled the scene in a Toy­ota AD wag­on, which was lat­er dis­cov­ered by po­lice at Pro­duc­tion Dri­ve, Sea Lots.

Asked why King, who had a pas­sen­ger in car, was the lone tar­get in the shoot­ing, An­nisette replied “Well, he is a Mus­lim from Co­corite and we know there is this un­for­tu­nate war be­tween the Ras­ta City gangs and Mus­lim gangs. There was a lit­tle pulling and tug­ging be­tween the two ar­eas. That could have trig­gered it.”

He said his son, who is the third of 12 chil­dren, was deeply root­ed in his faith and con­vert­ed to Is­lam af­ter grad­u­at­ing from sec­ondary school.

An­nisette said he has ad­vised his son that as a Mus­lim in a Co­corite com­mu­ni­ty and with the on­go­ing war be­tween the two groups, “you are go­ing to be tar­get­ed whether you are in­volved or not and you have to be care­ful and you have to be mind­ful. You are a big per­son. I can­not think for you and all I could do is to ex­press my wis­dom as a fa­ther to you. That is the re­al­i­ty.”

An­nisette said peo­ple have ac­cused his son of be­ing in­volved in drugs and il­le­gal firearms, but he de­nied this was so.

“Every time a young African gets killed or shot the nar­ra­tive seems to be, with­out any ev­i­dence, that they are in­volved in some kind of il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties. I can vouch and say my son was in no way in­volved in this. I nor­mal­ly don’t stick out my neck for any­body.”

But a vis­i­bly wor­ried An­nisette ad­mit­ted his son was a com­mu­ni­ty leader who raised funds for the dis­trict’s up­lift­ment.

“Yes, he runs his own busi­ness. Yes, he gives peo­ple work. If that is a gang leader, well.”

An­nisette said he would al­so not live in fear fol­low­ing his son’s brazen shoot­ing, not­ing that when gang mem­bers and killers can’t get at their prime tar­get they hunt down their fam­i­ly mem­bers.

“What is to be will be.”

Asked if his son may have to flee the coun­try to safe­guard his life, An­nisette said every­thing in life hap­pens for a rea­son.

“Some­times you can­not sec­ond guess what hap­pens in this life. You have to learn from it and move on. I am hop­ing with this in­ci­dent that wis­dom…not on­ly for him but for both com­mu­ni­ties, that good sense pre­vails,” An­nisette said.

“You don’t fight fire with fire, which I don’t sup­port and don’t agree with. We need to get to the root cause of what is hap­pen­ing. These guys are mis­guid­ed youths. How do they get the guns and drugs? No­body talks about those kinds of is­sues.”

But An­nisette said he knows he gun­men failed in their at­tempt to end his son’s life and may re­turn to fin­ish the job.

“The Man above knows best and we have to trust in Him. I can­not sit down here and sec­ond guess. I come from an African tra­di­tion where we be­lieve in the forces above and they de­ter­mine and dic­tate what hap­pens. Man is not God and there­fore I leave every­thing in the hands of the high­er be­ing.”


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored