RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

AND KELLYANN LEMESSY

Two men iden­ti­fied on­ly as “Rus­sel” and “Smokey”, said to be from San­gre Grande and Arou­ca re­spec­tive­ly, were shot dead by po­lice in­side a gar­den camp at Guayagua­yare yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Ken Jones, who owns the camp, told Guardian Me­dia that his neigh­bours heard the gun­shots and alert­ed him.

“When I came up to go by me, I saw a lot of po­lice. These two fel­las who were stay­ing with me, the po­lice shot them to death,” Jones re­vealed.

He said he had left the two men in his gar­den camp.

“I wasn’t there all night. I came back around 6 am, and that was when I saw the po­lice at the camp in La Brea Vil­lage,” Jones said.

He men­tioned that cer­tain peo­ple had been fight­ing him for land but he was un­sure whether this dis­pute was linked to the dou­ble killing.

“I don’t know why the po­lice shot these fel­las. I don’t know if they had any­thing with the po­lice or if this was re­lat­ed to the land dis­pute,” Jones said.

He ex­plained that both men had come to the com­mu­ni­ty to work in his gar­den and the one named Rus­sell was a fam­i­ly man.

He said he now fear­ful for his life and afraid to re­turn to his camp.

“I know Rus­sel to be a fam­i­ly man. He has a wife and chil­dren. He is an elec­tri­cian, and I know him to be hum­ble and qui­et. He wasn’t vi­o­lent, and I trust­ed him enough to leave him in my camp,” Jones said.

He ad­mit­ted that he did not know Smokey well.

Jones al­so said as far as he knew, nei­ther Smokey nor Rus­sel car­ried guns.

“The on­ly thing they car­ry around is a cut­lass. That is their tool for the gar­den. These men had no guns or any­thing,” he ex­plained.

Pri­or to the shoot­ing, Jones said, the po­lice of­fi­cers came to ques­tion them, as they were strangers in the area.

Mean­while, a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer said the shoot­ing oc­curred around 2 am. He said of­fi­cers from the Ma­yaro Po­lice Sta­tion went to La Brea Vil­lage af­ter re­ceiv­ing in­for­ma­tion about a dis­pute.

He said up­on reach­ing a wood­en shed off a dirt track, the po­lice of­fi­cers iden­ti­fied them­selves but were greet­ed with gun­fire from in­side the camp.

The of­fi­cers al­leged­ly re­turned fire in self-de­fence.

Po­lice said there were three peo­ple in the camp.

One man es­caped and when the of­fi­cers checked, they found the two oth­ers dead. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said they found a shot­gun near the bod­ies.

Au­top­sies will be done on the bod­ies to­day at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James.

Sgt Mo­hammed and of­fi­cers of the Ma­yaro Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tion De­part­ment are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.