A woman and her boyfriend were shot dead dur­ing a brazen gun at­tack near their home in Cou­va yes­ter­day. Po­lice said Amelia Her­nan­dez was killed even as she tried to pro­tect their daugh­ter.

The in­ci­dent oc­curred around 2.30 pm in the Jade Court com­mu­ni­ty in Lisas Gar­dens West. Po­lice said a gun­man wear­ing a hood­ie got out of a grey Corol­la ve­hi­cle and opened fire on 38-year-old De­vaughn Tou­s­saint, who was with Her­nan­dez and their in­fant daugh­ter out­side his car.

Her­nan­dez, on see­ing what was hap­pen­ing, ran to pro­tect their daugh­ter, but the gun­man first shot Tou­s­saint be­fore chas­ing down Her­nan­dez and fir­ing at her sev­er­al times in a near­by park. The cou­ple’s daugh­ter es­caped un­hurt al­though Her­nan­dez was shot in front of her.

Oth­er res­i­dents, in­clud­ing chil­dren who were in the park, had to scam­per to safe­ty when the gun­shots rang out.

Tou­s­saint died at the scene while Her­nan­dez was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival at hos­pi­tal.

The shoot­ing left res­i­dents trau­ma­tised. A res­i­dent, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said he was not at home at the time, but said from what he heard, Tou­s­saint was the gun­man’s in­tend­ed tar­get.

Po­lice did not im­me­di­ate­ly dis­close a mo­tive but said Tou­s­saint was known to the po­lice and had a crim­i­nal record. Of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau Re­gion 3 are in­ves­ti­gat­ing. —Sascha Wil­son