Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

More than two years af­ter the mur­der of his son, 60-year-old Ger­ard Forde says he isn’t con­vinced that the Gov­ern­ment’s strat­e­gy to in­tro­duce Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSOs) to tar­get crim­i­nals in des­ig­nat­ed ar­eas will yield any re­sults.

Forde’s son, Bran­don Forde, 23, was one of four men gunned down dur­ing a dri­ve-by shoot­ing on Bel­mont Cir­cu­lar Road in Oc­to­ber 2023.

Al­so killed were Bran­don Pad­more, Chivon Clarke, and Ker­ron Moore.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at his home, just across the street from where his son was mur­dered, Forde dis­missed the strat­e­gy. Forde, who was in the area at the time of his son’s mur­der in 2023, lament­ed that there was no warn­ing that such an at­tack was im­mi­nent and ques­tioned how po­lice would pre­vent blood­shed that could hap­pen at any giv­en time.

“I can’t see it do­ing any­thing by way of crime pre­ven­tion.

“What are they go­ing to do? Here in the street, no­body does any­thing. Right over there, my son was killed ... a car just pulled up, shoot, and that was it.

“There hasn’t been any clo­sure. We just bury him and move on.”

The el­der Forde said that his son lived on Ty­wang Street, with­in walk­ing dis­tance from where the shoot­ing be­gan.

He added that the Bel­mont Cir­cu­lar Road con­nect­ed Bel­mont and found it hard to en­vi­sion how a ZOSO could suf­fi­cient­ly quell vi­o­lent crime and mur­ders on a com­mu­ni­ty-wide ba­sis.

“I can’t see that hap­pen­ing at all be­cause what else can they do?”

So far nei­ther the Gov­ern­ment nor the po­lice ser­vice have in­di­cat­ed where ZOSOs will be des­ig­nat­ed.

In ad­di­tion to his scep­ti­cism over the pro­posed an­ti-crime plan, Forde said he is dis­ap­point­ed that there have been no up­dates on his son’s mur­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion or whether any­one was ar­rest­ed and charged for the killings.

Re­call­ing the tense at­mos­phere in the neigh­bour­hood in the af­ter­math of the quadru­ple mur­der in 2023, Forde said there was un­ease among res­i­dents who were afraid to ven­ture out­side as they were wary of be­ing caught in the cross­fire be­tween gangs.

Look­ing at the ex­act spot where the shoot­ing be­gan from the gallery of his home, Forde said, while peo­ple have moved on in the com­mu­ni­ty, he con­tin­ues to live with the trau­ma of see­ing his el­dest son gunned down, es­pe­cial­ly as the ex­act lo­ca­tion of the mur­ders is vis­i­ble from his own home.

When asked what he felt could be done to pre­vent fur­ther blood­shed, Forde urged fam­i­lies to take ac­tion and pro­tect their chil­dren, as he lament­ed his own in­abil­i­ty to pro­tect his son.

“All I can say is pro­tect your chil­dren.

“Mon­i­tor them, see the kind of life they’re liv­ing, talk to them, help them, try ... be­cause I couldn’t do any­thing. I couldn’t do any­thing about it.”

Re­tired cop:

ZOSOs could work

When con­tact­ed for com­ment, re­tired DCP in charge of Op­er­a­tions, Jayson Forde, en­dorsed the in­tro­duc­tion of ZOSOs, which he said could yield re­sults if im­ple­ment­ed care­ful­ly with clear ob­jec­tives to guide the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

Re­spond­ing to doubts over the abil­i­ty of the po­lice to ef­fec­tive­ly sub­due vi­o­lent at­tacks, Forde said any po­lice ac­tion should be based on re­li­able in­tel­li­gence and da­ta on which neigh­bour­hoods were to be tar­get­ed, while min­imis­ing un­nec­es­sary con­fronta­tions.

“There needs to be a col­lec­tion of da­ta on peo­ple com­mit­ting the dif­fer­ent types of crime, where they com­mit those crimes, and where they live.

“Crime-fight­ing has to be ev­i­dence-led, but it is not just as I jump up in the morn­ing, I say, ‘We go­ing here, there, and every­where.’ Any­one who is fa­mil­iar with po­lice op­er­a­tions knows that po­lice, once they’re func­tion­ing the way they’re sup­posed to, don’t func­tion in an ad hoc man­ner.”

In ad­di­tion to po­lice op­er­a­tions, Forde said he al­so hoped that the in­tro­duc­tion of ZOSOs would in­clude the par­tic­i­pa­tion of oth­er gov­ern­ment agen­cies, in­clud­ing so­cial de­vel­op­ment, which could al­low for a more com­pre­hen­sive com­mu­ni­ty-lev­el in­ter­ven­tion.

Forde al­so not­ed that such an arrange­ment would as­sist the Gov­ern­ment in re­view­ing the suc­cess and short­com­ings of the strat­e­gy, with rec­om­men­da­tions on what could be done to in­crease ef­fi­cien­cy.

Mean­while, in To­ba­go, po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist Leroy George said the in­tro­duc­tion of ZOSOs was not a ma­jor con­cern for many To­bag­o­ni­ans.

De­spite this, he was con­cerned that Afro-To­bag­o­ni­ans may face dis­crim­i­na­tion if des­ig­nat­ed zones of in­ter­est were es­tab­lished in To­ba­go.