Rhon­dor Dowlat

Po­lice in the West­ern Di­vi­sion are brac­ing for an up­surge in gang-re­lat­ed in­ci­dents fol­low­ing the mur­der of Shel­don Trim­ming­ham of La Puer­ta, Diego Mar­tin.

Trim­ming­ham's mur­der came just over 24 hours af­ter a gang leader from the area and an­oth­er gang mem­ber were shot and wound­ed. That in­ci­dent oc­curred around 9 pm on Sun­day, where the gang leader was shot in the leg when gun­men shot up the ve­hi­cle he was in. Po­lice sources said they be­lieve Trim­ming­ham was killed as a reprisal over that shoot­ing.

A res­i­dent from the area, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied, said Trim­ming­ham had been threat­ened dur­ing the day on Mon­day.

"He was nowhere to be found dur­ing the day and he knew they were out for him, but he chose to still come out in the night to lime," the res­i­dent said.

Asked what was hap­pen­ing in the La Puer­ta area, he said: "They start­ing to fight for turf again. Is the up­per don't deal with the low­er peo­ple and that is the re­al­i­ty of it."

How­ev­er, Trim­ming­ham's rel­a­tives, who spoke to the T&T Guardian while at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day, said they had no idea why the fa­ther of four was killed.

Trim­ming­ham's com­mon-law-wife, Niki­ta Owen, said she was home at the time when she heard gun­shots and came out­side to Trim­ming­ham dead.

Asked if he was threat­ened or if she had any idea why he was killed, Owen said: "No. He nev­er told me any­thing and I did not know any­thing."

She de­scribed Trim­ming­ham as a hard work­er and ded­i­cat­ed fa­ther to his chil­dren, aged 16, 11, 18 months and two months.

"He was cur­rent­ly the sub-con­trac­tor for the Diego Mar­tin Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre which is be­ing built present­ly. He worked very hard and hon­est­ly to earn a liv­ing and to see about me and his chil­dren. He was a very cool and lov­ing per­son to me," Owen said.

His sis­ter, who did not give her name, used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to clear the air on her broth­er be­ing one of the 13 peo­ple who were charged for the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of busi­ness­woman Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man. In fact, it was his broth­ers - Mar­lon and Earl Trim­ming­ham -who were linked to that case. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.