The mur­der of 42-year-old Michael Dun­can out­side his Bel­mont home on Mon­day night is be­lieved to be the lat­est in­ci­dent in an on­go­ing gang war be­tween ri­val gangs in the com­mu­ni­ty, res­i­dents say.

Po­lice said Dun­can, alias “Don­key”, was sit­ting in his sil­ver Nis­san Almera, which was parked out­side his Lu­cien Road home, around 9.55 pm when res­i­dents heard a vol­ley of gun­fire.

One of Dun­can’s rel­a­tives who was in the house at the time checked and saw him slumped in the dri­ver’s side seat of the car with sev­er­al gun­shot wounds.

An­oth­er rel­a­tive who was al­so in the house at the time called the po­lice, who vis­it­ed the scene with a dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer who de­clared Dun­can dead.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors found 15 spent 5.56 shells, two spent .40 cal­i­bre shells and two live rounds of am­mu­ni­tion at the scene.

Dun­can’s car was towed to the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion for fur­ther analy­sis.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the neigh­bour­hood on Tues­day, the chalk out­lines used by crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors to iden­ti­fy scat­tered bul­lets and spent shells were still vis­i­ble on the street out­side Dun­can’s home.

One woman, San­dra Cur­van, said her daugh­ter was in­volved in a re­la­tion­ship with Dun­can and knew him to be a “good-na­tured” per­son. How­ev­er, she ad­mit­ted she was aware of the on­go­ing feud be­tween ri­val crim­i­nal fac­tions.

Cur­van, who lives in the same gen­er­al area, said she re­mem­bered hear­ing the gun­shots but did not think Dun­can was in dan­ger un­til the fol­low­ing morn­ing, when she learnt of his death.

“I told my­self that I knew it have war­ring go­ing in with Gon­za­les and Bel­mont. It was on­ly this morn­ing I got to un­der­stand that it was he (Dun­can) who they killed.

“When you in that (crim­i­nal) fra­ter­ni­ty, it’s life or death.”

Cur­van said she was not par­tic­u­lar­ly fear­ful, as she knew she would not be the tar­get of any crim­i­nals, but said res­i­dents re­mained vig­i­lant when­ev­er they ven­tured out­doors.

“They (crim­i­nals) doesn’t tell you when they com­ing for you. I have no fear be­cause I know I’m not in­volved in it, but you have to have your head on. You might not be a part of that crim­i­nal fra­ter­ni­ty, but you might be un­for­tu­nate enough to be a vic­tim.”

Asked if she could say any­thing to en­cour­age the crim­i­nals to end their cy­cle of re­tal­i­a­tion, Cur­van said it may be too late for some peo­ple who were in­volved in that lifestyle.

Cur­van said Dun­can was the fa­ther of a 12-year-old girl and a ten-year-old boy and lament­ed that he did not sur­vive to see the SEA re­sults of his daugh­ter.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Jen­nifer Ann Har­bans, al­so re­mem­bered hear­ing the sound of gun­fire as she was say­ing her night­ly prayers and was shocked by the quick suc­ces­sion of gun­shots.

“I am a Catholic. I was say­ing the rosary and I just heard bow, bow, bow. I thought, that doesn’t sound like the cow­boy west­erns that I look at on tele­vi­sion.

“As I stopped hear­ing the shoot­ing, about five min­utes lat­er, I saw all the po­lice and came out­side to see.”

While Guardian Me­dia was in the area, a shop­keep­er whose par­lour was with­in walk­ing dis­tance of the mur­der scene be­gan prepar­ing flam­beaux from beer bot­tles to line the street in mem­o­ry of Dun­can.

He told Guardian Me­dia that he on­ly had pleas­ant in­ter­ac­tions with Dun­can.

Dun­can is the eighth per­son to be killed in Bel­mont for the year thus far.

As of Tues­day morn­ing, there were 149 mur­ders com­pared to 219 for the same pe­ri­od in 2024.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin ac­knowl­edged that while vi­o­lent at­tacks and reprisals were still a chal­lenge to pub­lic safe­ty, he said ini­tial da­ta avail­able to the TTPS sug­gest­ed that it was a no­tice­able drop in the num­ber of mur­ders in the Port of Spain Di­vi­sion—of which Bel­mont is a part—com­pared to da­ta avail­able last year.

Ben­jamin re­port­ed there were on­ly two mur­ders in the area for the month of May this year, com­pared to five last year.

He added that there were on­ly 18 mur­ders in the Port of Spain Di­vi­sion com­pared to 41 for the same pe­ri­od last year.

Ben­jamin not­ed, how­ev­er, that in­ter­ven­tion was need­ed and said he has al­ready been in con­tact with op­er­a­tional units to en­sure more crime sup­pres­sion in the area.

He said, “We are go­ing to con­tin­ue to in­ten­si­fy the num­ber of op­er­a­tions in those ar­eas. I am talk­ing to our joint op­er­a­tional task force that is as­signed to the Bel­mont area to try and in­crease the num­bers there and in­crease the num­ber of op­er­a­tions there with both the army and the po­lice.

“We will al­so have the hearts and minds unit to bring the soft­er type of polic­ing to in­tro­duce in­ter­ven­tion strate­gies to help solve some of these prob­lems.

“We are not naive; we are work­ing on it.”

Po­lice from the Re­gion I Homi­cide Bu­reau are con­tin­u­ing en­quiries in­to Dun­can’s mur­der.

Per­sons killed in Bel­mont for the year thus far

On Jan­u­ary 7, Nigel Latch­man, 19, was shot and killed while trav­el­ling in the front pas­sen­ger seat of his moth­er’s black Toy­ota Aqua.

On Jan­u­ary 13, Onel­la Parks was chased and gunned down as she walked to work on Lover’s Lane, Bel­mont.

On Jan­u­ary 18, Steven Chu­niesingh, 18 and Ian Jones Thomas, 54, were shot and killed on Up­per St Fran­cois Val­ley Road, Bel­mont.

On Feb­ru­ary 1, Ja­son Mur­ray, 45, was shot and killed while at a job­site on Davis Street, Bel­mont.

Mar­vin Phillip, 33, was shot and killed on Feb­ru­ary 17, when he vis­it­ed Wal­cott Lane near Belle Eau Road to col­lect a drill.

On May 11, Wendy Bertrand was stabbed to death at her Bowen Trace, St Barbs, home.