Derek Achong

A 59-year-old man was shot dead in Laven­tille yes­ter­day. His mur­der along with the stab­bing death of a 24-year-old Ja­maican man of Union Road, Mara­bel­la, on Tues­day night, pushed the mur­der toll to 29. The fig­ure for last year was 377, with 38 mur­ders be­ing record­ed in Jan­u­ary, ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics from the Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis Branch of the Po­lice Ser­vice (CA­PA).

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, around 10.15 am, res­i­dents of Red­dy Mix Pri­vate Road in Laven­tille, re­port­ed hear­ing sev­er­al gun­shots. Po­lice from the Besson Street CID re­spond­ed and found Carl­ton Weekes, of Third Street, Beetham Gar­dens, un­con­scious in a drain.

Weekes, who was shot sev­er­al times, was pro­nounced dead on the scene by a dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer. A post-mortem will be done on his body to­day. Res­i­dents told in­ves­ti­ga­tors Weekes would reg­u­lar­ly walk along their street to vis­it sev­er­al near­by pa­n­yards.

Homi­cide de­tec­tives had not es­tab­lished a mo­tive for Weekes' mur­der up to late yes­ter­day, but be­lieve he might have been an in­no­cent vic­tim in an on­go­ing feud be­tween ri­val gangs from Beetham Gar­dens and Laven­tille. Mean­while, Po­lice have not iden­ti­fied the man who was shot dead on Tues­day af­ter­noon at Man­go Al­ley, Trou Macaque, Laven­tille.

Around 4.20 pm, the man, who po­lice said was not from the com­mu­ni­ty, was walk­ing when he was con­front­ed by a gun­man who shot him sev­er­al times. He was tak­en to the Port-of-Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal by po­lice from the Port-of-Spain Task Force but died short­ly af­ter be­ing ad­mit­ted.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors yes­ter­day ap­pealed to mem­bers of the pub­lic who might be able to iden­ti­fy the vic­tim to con­tact the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion at 625-8008. ASP Ajith Per­sad, In­sp Sa­hadeo Singh and Cpl Charles Bu­drie are prob­ing both mur­ders.