An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Nine days af­ter a cou­ple was gunned down in front of their three-year-old daugh­ter at Jade Court, Cou­va, res­i­dents stepped out on Sun­day for a peace con­cert aimed at restor­ing calm and uni­ty in the shak­en com­mu­ni­ty. And at least one artiste says the coun­try needs to come to­geth­er to stop the crime.

On the same play­ground where Du­vaughn Tou­s­saint and Amelia Her­nan­dez were shot and killed around 2.30 pm on Feb­ru­ary 13, el­der­ly res­i­dents stood hold­ing light­ed can­dles while chil­dren’s laugh­ter once again filled the space.

The three-hour con­cert fea­tured per­for­mances by 2026 Ca­lyp­so Monarch Ter­ri Lyons; Freestyle Monarch Akeem “Pred­dy” Chance; four-time Na­tion­al Ex­tem­po Cham­pi­on The Mighty Lin­go; Fire­ball; Blessed Mes­sen­ger; gospel singer Jaron Nurse; and oth­ers. Res­i­dents sang along, ex­press­ing re­lief at be­ing able to gath­er open­ly and re­con­nect af­ter days of fear and grief.

The event was or­gan­ised by 2026 Ex­tem­po Monarch Bri­an Lon­don in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Cou­va Po­lice Sta­tion Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil, led by pres­i­dent Bish­op Ezekiel Clarke.

Res­i­dent La­toya Attzs said the con­cert was in­tend­ed to “bring some love and light back in­to the com­mu­ni­ty, in light of what we ex­pe­ri­enced.”

Ad­mit­ting she was ini­tial­ly un­cer­tain whether res­i­dents would em­brace the ini­tia­tive, Attzs said she was heart­ened by the turnout.

“We feel the love from the en­vi­rons and all the artistes who came out to make this pos­si­ble,” she said. “We feel the love. We feel that Trinidad has not for­got­ten us.”

Asked what lies ahead for Jade Court, Attzs said the fo­cus would be on re­turn­ing to nor­mal­cy, par­tic­u­lar­ly for the chil­dren who wit­nessed the trau­mat­ic event.

“We’re go­ing to try to see how best we can get back to some sort of nor­mal­cy, es­pe­cial­ly with the chil­dren who were part of the trau­ma,” she said.

She al­so wel­comed the coun­selling sup­port of­fered to res­i­dents and agreed that sim­i­lar ini­tia­tives should be tak­en in­to oth­er com­mu­ni­ties.

“It’s sad that some­thing had to hap­pen for this to come about. This is some­thing that should be hap­pen­ing all over the coun­try, through­out the year, not just when some­thing bad hap­pens,” she added.

Lon­don said he felt com­pelled to or­gan­ise the con­cert af­ter wit­ness­ing what he de­scribed as the cold-blood­ed killing of the cou­ple — par­tic­u­lar­ly the death of a moth­er pro­tect­ing her child.

“As artistes, we have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. We have a voice, and our voice reach­es far and wide,” he said.

He ex­plained that the aim was to bring re­lief and to­geth­er­ness while re­as­sur­ing trau­ma­tised res­i­dents that they mat­ter.

“We have to start to rise up and be proac­tive as op­posed to re­ac­tive,” Lon­don urged.

“We need to get in­to com­mu­ni­ties and change lives through mu­sic. In­stead of wait­ing for some­thing to hap­pen, we should just go in­to com­mu­ni­ties and do this — with­out there be­ing a mur­der or a crime.”

He added that such out­reach could un­cov­er hid­den tal­ent. “We might dis­cov­er the next Jaron Nurse, the next Machel Mon­tano, the next De­stra. We might dis­cov­er that in a com­mu­ni­ty.”

Al­though fear and hes­i­ta­tion were ev­i­dent dur­ing the plan­ning stages, Lon­don said Sun­day’s turnout was a tes­ta­ment to the re­silience of Trinida­di­ans and the uni­fy­ing pow­er of mu­sic.

Clarke pledged to ex­pand the ini­tia­tive to oth­er parts of Cou­va and said the wider coun­try could ben­e­fit from sim­i­lar ef­forts. He praised the Cou­va Po­lice Sta­tion for sup­port­ing the idea when it was first pro­posed on Car­ni­val Sat­ur­day — one day af­ter the shoot­ing.

“We just need to come to­geth­er, bond to­geth­er, uni­fy, live in peace and love, neigh­bour reach out to neigh­bour, and re­spect each oth­er most of all,” Clarke said.

He not­ed that the Spe­cial Vic­tims Unit pro­vid­ed coun­selling two days af­ter the tragedy, with oth­er agen­cies al­so vol­un­teer­ing their ser­vices.

Lyons, who lives in the com­mu­ni­ty, said she was ea­ger to lend her sup­port and demon­strate the heal­ing pow­er of love and cul­ture.

She urged par­ents to pray and com­fort their chil­dren, not­ing the na­tion­al im­pact of the vi­ral video show­ing chil­dren run­ning in fear.

“Talk to your kids. Hug them. Keep them close. En­cour­age them. Speak the Lord in­to them,” she plead­ed.

Chance said he par­tic­i­pat­ed to show sol­i­dar­i­ty.

“We def­i­nite­ly stand with the peo­ple against crime, against any neg­a­tive that is go­ing on,” he said.

He al­so called for greater use of cul­ture in schools as a pos­i­tive out­let for young peo­ple.