SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

A fight for turf among war­ring gang lead­ers and mem­bers in Tu­na­puna is be­ing blamed for the re­cent up­surge in mur­ders.

The lat­est to fall vic­tim of the gun were two-year-old Ani­ah and her 39-year-old fa­ther Ste­fon Mc Leod of Up­per Fair­ley Street, bring­ing the mur­ders in the once peace­ful com­mu­ni­ty to six for this year.

Two weeks ago, Kath­leen Th­er­oule, 56, and her 19-year-old son Keron were rid­dled with bul­lets in­side their Cor­nelius Street home.

The mur­ders kicked off in Jan­u­ary when Ken­neth Mait­lan was shot out­side his apart­ment build­ing on Ali Street.

Two months lat­er, Vaugh­n­dell Joseph was found dead in a drain on St Vin­cent Street.

On Wednes­day, res­i­dents of Up­per Fair­ley Street spoke in whis­pers about last Fri­day’s dou­ble mur­der, as they tried to come to terms with the tragedy that has be­fall­en their com­mu­ni­ty.

The mur­der of the Ani­ah and her dad was the sec­ond dou­ble mur­der to have tak­en place in Tu­na­puna in the last three weeks.

Video footage of the shoot­ing, viewed by Guardian Me­dia, showed Mc Leod dri­ving his car along Fair­ley Street which stopped in front of an opened yard where Ani­ah was play­ing with an­oth­er girl.

Ani­ah was tak­en to the car by her moth­er Melin­da to meet her fa­ther.

Melin­da chat­ted briefly and placed the tod­dler in­side the ve­hi­cle which slow­ly drove off.

Sec­onds lat­er, a car was seen trail­ing Mc Leod.

As Melin­da turned her back, the sounds of rapid gun­fire were heard, as pedes­tri­ans scam­pered to safer ground.

Melin­da’s in­stinct told her some­thing was wrong as the shoot­er jumped in­to a ve­hi­cle which sped off.

She ran down the road on­ly to see Ani­ah’s life­less body cov­ered in blood and Mc Leod slumped be­hind the steer­ing wheel.

The pain was too much for Melin­da who screamed out in agony “they killed my child... they killed my child.”

With trem­bling hands Melin­da lift­ed her daugh­ter out of the car and ran to­wards her home for help.

Fa­ther of five Seer­aj Ram­saran who lives in the same yard with Melin­da of­fered to rush Ani­ah to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ence Com­plex in Mt Hope for med­ical at­ten­tion.

Ram­saran said he clung on to hope know­ing that the tod­dler had a faint heart­beat.

“ But when the doc­tors came out of the emer­gency room and shook their heads we knew she was gone. I nev­er ex­pect­ed Ani­ah to die at the hands of a bul­let. This shoot­ing has shat­tered me. My chil­dren are af­fect­ed.”

Every day, Ani­ah would vis­it Ram­saran’s chil­dren to play.

“She used to sit in my car and pre­tend to dri­ve. Ani­ah al­so loved dou­bles. To me, it was her favourite food. She was such an an­gel.

Since the shoot­ing, Ram­saran keeps his chil­dren in­doors.

“I for one don’t hang out out­side. Once the sun goes down I would lock my door.”

Ram­saran al­so plans to in­stall a wrought iron fence and gate at the front of his home, stat­ing that he no longer felt safe in the area be­cause of the spate of killings.

“If I leave here, where would I go? Nowhere is safe any­more. The mur­ders in Tu­na­puna re­al­ly get­ting out of con­trol. It have us liv­ing in con­stant fear be­cause you don’t know who is next. If they could shoot a tod­dler with­out mer­cy and a heart, what would they leave for adults?” Ram­saran said.

Po­lice of­fi­cials told Guardian Me­dia that a fight for turf among gang mem­bers and lead­ers in the Tu­na­puna/ Ma­coya/Main­got Road ar­eas have been trig­ger­ing the mur­ders.

Alias­es such as Croc, Pel­man, Yar­di, Sa­tan, Bar­man, Lizard, Co­co, Jas­pa, Mex­i­can, Fats, Shevy, Mon­ster and Stink­ing are said to be as­so­ci­at­ed with the gangs which have been caus­ing hav­oc and may­hem in the com­mu­ni­ties.

A 2010/2020 Mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty of Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co- Lo­cal Area Pro­file re­port stat­ed that a 2010 Cit­i­zen Se­cu­ri­ty Sur­vey showed that 22 per cent of the north­ern re­gion’s re­spon­dents in­di­cat­ed there was a gang in their neigh­bour­hood.

Al­so, the res­i­dents did not feel safe.

At the cor­ner of Sesame Road and Fair­ley Street where Ani­ah and her fa­ther were gunned down, res­i­dents re­mained tight-lipped.

“You don’t know who you are deal­ing with. You have to be care­ful of any­thing you say and do,” re­marked one shop­keep­er.

Ani­ah’s grand­moth­er Rosan­na Jag­ger­nauth said the hold­ers of the il­le­gal firearms are not adults but chil­dren.

“Is chil­dren us­ing the guns now. Not big peo­ple. Every­thing is a gun.”

Jag­ger­nauth won­dered how the high pow­ered weapons were com­ing in­to the coun­try un­de­tect­ed.

Gripped with fear and anger, Jag­ger­nauth said soon she would be mov­ing out with Melin­da.

“My daugh­ter wants to leave. I am leav­ing with her. Hon­est­ly, I am not feel­ing safe here any­more.”

Jag­ger­nauth said she had no idea what led to the killings.

“No­body is talk­ing. The killer is still walk­ing free. All we are ask­ing God for is jus­tice.”

She said Ani­ah picked up five bul­lets.

One of the bul­lets struck her head and shat­tered an eye.

An­oth­er pierced her chest.

“What did that lit­tle ba­by do to de­serve five bul­lets? You tell me,” said an emo­tion­al Jag­ger­nauth.

Last No­vem­ber, res­i­dent Roslyn Thomas said her son Ganesh Cud­joe was sprayed with bul­lets while at his Bam­boo Trace home.

Cud­joe left be­hind five chil­dren and a wife who was nine months preg­nant.

“When the gun­men opened fire Ganesh ran in front of his wife to save her life and that of their un­born child. It’s a very painful thing to lose a child. It’s scary to live up here. Every day I does cry for my son,” Thomas said, clutch­ing her chest, as tears streamed down her face.

Hav­ing lived in the area for decades, Thomas said Tu­na­puna was peace­ful and every­body looked out for one an­oth­er.

How­ev­er, she ad­mit­ted that things have since changed, stat­ing that her com­mu­ni­ty has be­come a ter­ror and war zone.

“It was a close-knit com­mu­ni­ty. These killings are some­thing new. I don’t know what to tell you that could change things go­ing on here right now. The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic did not stop the killers. It still had mur­ders. Par­ents are griev­ing, cry­ing and hurt­ing every day. There is too much blood­shed.”

Thomas said Cud­joe’s mur­der has re­mained un­solved to this date.

“ He (Cud­joe) was good around every­body. I don’t know when my door closed what ac­tiv­i­ty took place on the out­side,” Thomas said.

Tu­na­puna MP Es­mond Forde said the six mur­ders were far too many.

As the rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the area, Forde said he could on­ly do so much.

“ I re­al­ly do not like it, We need to en­sure....know your friends... know what you are in­volved in. It is re­al­ly a sad day in Tu­na­puna.”

Forde could not say what has been fu­elling the mur­ders.

“ I am not say­ing if Stephon was in­volved in any­thing. I know Stephon. When I was a coun­cil­lor I used to give Stephon three months con­tracts at the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion ever so of­ten.”

Asked if the killings could dis­suade peo­ple from vot­ing for him in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions, Forde said crime was a na­tion­al and glob­al is­sue.

“It hurts when it hits home. This (crime) is big­ger than me. For each MP you would be glad to know it is not in your con­stituen­cy....so you could walk about and say no­body got killed in my area. I would love to say that.”

De­spite pro­grammes and job op­por­tu­ni­ties be­ing of­fered to up­lift the lives of his con­stituents, Forde said some peo­ple have a dif­fer­ent mind­set.

On Thurs­day, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith of­fered a $25,000 re­ward for in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to Ani­ah’s killer.