A Bel­mont woman be­lieves her son’s out­right re­fusal to join a gang may be what ul­ti­mate­ly led to his death, as gang mem­bers con­tin­ued to tar­get him at every op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Po­lice said Adun­di Tele­maque, 41, was gunned down in a track that con­nects Up­per Belle Eau Road to St Barb’s Road in Bel­mont at 7 am on New Year’s Day.

He is be­lieved to be the first mur­der vic­tim of 2024.

Res­i­dents re­port­ed see­ing three masked gun­men jump­ing over a wall and run­ning through the track short­ly af­ter the gun­shots were heard.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors found 41 spent shells, in­clud­ing 5.56, 9mm and 40-cal­i­bre shells, at the scene.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day, Tele­maque’s moth­er Deb­o­rah Williams said when the gang­sters did not get him to join the gang, they tried to ex­tort him.

When this al­so failed, she said the crim­i­nals at­tacked him, which led to him be­ing shot on two sep­a­rate oc­ca­sions over the past two years.

“The bad boys and them up by us, they want­ed him to pick up the gun but he told them he not do­ing that, he’s a big old man who has two chil­dren,” she said.

“They told him that one day and they shot him days lat­er on his hand. That time he drove him­self to the sta­tion.

“They come back again be­hind him and said he had to pay $1,000 when he gets paid. He said he has two chil­dren and that his mon­ey was for that and build­ing his house.”

Williams said the sec­ond shoot­ing hap­pened in Au­gust 2022, when Tele­maque was shot in his hand and hip and drove him­self to the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion again be­fore be­ing tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. She said de­spite re­peat­ed warn­ings to him and ad­vice for him to vis­it a rel­a­tive in the US to get away from the con­stant threats to his life, Tele­maque re­fused to be chased away and con­tin­ued to live life as nor­mal.

“I tell him to take some leave and go and meet his un­cle out there. He said ‘Mam­my I ain’t go­ing nowhere’. He said up there he born and grow up, he wasn’t run­ning from no­body. He was kind of stub­born, he wouldn’t back down.”

Williams said Tele­maque was am­bushed when he walked out­side to dis­pose of garbage, by the gun­men who hid in a near­by yard and wait­ed for him.

She said Tele­maque was a labour­er with the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA).

Com­ment­ing on re­cent re­marks by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher over a five per cent de­cline in mur­ders last year, Williams dis­missed any claims of an im­prove­ment in the mur­der sta­tis­tics, not­ing that any crime-fight­ing progress was not vis­i­ble.

“That’s a waste of time. Noth­ing has dropped.

“If you go and make a re­port like we did, by the time you reach home in half an hour they can call my son and say, ‘Or you and your moth­er went in the sta­tion.’ You don’t see they putting us up to kill us? If I make a re­port that’s sup­posed to be con­fi­den­tial.”

Williams said her son’s mur­der was par­tic­u­lar­ly heart­break­ing, as it was the be­gin­ning of 2024 and re­called the good mem­o­ries she shared with him and his chil­dren on Old Year’s Night as they lit fire­works and cel­e­brat­ed the new year.

–Shane Su­perville