Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

A shoot­ing in east Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day morn­ing left one man dead, two oth­ers in­jured, and the com­mu­ni­ty fear­ful of pos­si­ble re­tal­ia­to­ry at­tacks.

Po­lice said 33-year-old Si­mon was lim­ing with two oth­er men in front of Build­ing 45-53 Man­go Rose, when a sil­ver Nis­san X-Trail drove near them. Three gun­men got out of the car and shot at Si­mon and the oth­er men.

Si­mon tried to get away from his at­tack­ers by run­ning up a flight of stairs at the near­by build­ing, but was chased and shot sev­er­al times.

One of the wound­ed men who was shot in his right leg was lat­er dis­charged from hos­pi­tal af­ter re­ceiv­ing treat­ment, while the oth­er re­mained ward­ed at hos­pi­tal for mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds.

Sev­er­al res­i­dents said the gun­men were seen leav­ing a black SUV, which they de­scribed as an “un­fa­mil­iar ve­hi­cle.” How­ev­er, the sight did not im­me­di­ate­ly raise sus­pi­cion as the ve­hi­cle re­sem­bled un­marked po­lice cars typ­i­cal­ly seen in the area.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the scene, blood­stains and spent shell cas­ings from large-cal­i­bre am­mu­ni­tion were vis­i­ble on the street and in a near­by drain, while cu­ri­ous res­i­dents looked on from win­dows in sur­round­ing build­ings.

Of­fi­cers from the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) Hearts and Minds unit, who were con­duct­ing a school vis­it near­by, were first to ar­rive and cor­doned off the area.

One man, who asked not to be named, showed re­porters frag­ments of met­al lodged in his t-shirt and trousers, which he be­lieved were bul­let frag­ments that struck him dur­ing the shoot­ing. He said he had been throw­ing garbage in­to a near­by dump­ster when the gun­fire be­gan.

“I didn’t both­er to see what di­rec­tion any­body was com­ing from or who they were com­ing for. I just ducked down and ran as fast as I could be­cause that was the on­ly thing to do in that sit­u­a­tion. It was on­ly af­ter I re­alised I had a small cut from the frag­ments that flew be­hind me,” he said, point­ing to cuts on the back of his neck.

Si­mon’s rel­a­tives, in­clud­ing a small child, were heard cry­ing out­side the scene up­on learn­ing of his death.

East Dry Riv­er coun­cil­lor Clint Bap­tiste ex­pressed sad­ness over Si­mon’s mur­der, not­ing that he had known him since pri­ma­ry school. Bap­tiste of­fered con­do­lences to Si­mon’s fam­i­ly and urged res­i­dents to re­main calm.

While he did not spec­u­late on the mo­tive or the pos­si­bil­i­ty of re­tal­ia­to­ry at­tacks, Bap­tiste said he hoped the neigh­bour­hood would con­tin­ue to en­joy peace.

“It’s nev­er a good thing when peo­ple are un­com­fort­able in their own homes or mov­ing about, so it’s my hope and prayer that we can keep things the way they were be­fore this hap­pened,” he said.

Of­fi­cers of the Re­gion I Homi­cide Bu­reau are in­ves­ti­gat­ing Si­mon’s mur­der.