RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

A well-or­ches­trat­ed hit is how in­ves­ti­ga­tors de­scribed the ex­e­cu­tion of 38-year-old gang leader An­thon “Boom­bay” “Boom­bi” “Bombi” Boney, who was shot dead by gun­men dressed in tac­ti­cal gear af­ter they stopped his Sport Util­i­ty Ve­hi­cle (SUV) along the north­bound lane of the Uri­ah But­ler High­way, near the Ca­roni Bird Sanc­tu­ary, just be­fore noon yes­ter­day.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors told Guardian Me­dia that a dark-coloured SUV in­ter­cept­ed Boney’s ve­hi­cle along the high­way close to 11.10 am and or­dered him to pull over on­to the shoul­der.

Boney, of Africa Road, John John, Laven­tille, stopped his dark grey Kia Soren­to SUV, li­censed PDP 7944. One of the oc­cu­pants of the oth­er ve­hi­cle, who was dressed in black tac­ti­cal gear and black boots, ap­proached Boney’s ve­hi­cle and af­ter ask­ing him if he was the own­er, pumped sev­er­al bul­lets in­to Boney.

Fol­low­ing the shoot­ing, Boney’s ve­hi­cle, which in­ves­ti­ga­tors said was still idling, rolled a short dis­tance for­ward in­to a ditch and came to a halt.

The gun­man ran back to the SUV and drove off north­bound with oth­er oc­cu­pants. Po­lice sus­pect they may have used a black Toy­ota Rav 4.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors re­vealed a 63-year-old woman who was al­so in Boney’s ve­hi­cle es­caped un­hurt. They al­so be­lieve there was a third oc­cu­pant in the SUV.

Se­nior in­tel­li­gence sources told Guardian Me­dia that Boney’s killing “will have deep ram­i­fi­ca­tions in the un­der­world,” adding they have al­ready re­ceived cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion about those who are po­ten­tial­ly re­spon­si­ble for Boney’s ex­e­cu­tion.

The in­tel­li­gence sources said a re­cent in­ci­dent in which a well-known gang leader es­caped an as­sas­si­na­tion at­tempt may be con­nect­ed to Boney’s death.

In fact, over the last few weeks, law en­force­ment stat­ed there had been con­stant chat­ter about crim­i­nal el­e­ments plan­ning to use po­lice and/or army uni­forms to com­mit se­ri­ous crimes.

Sources said they have al­so re­ceived cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion that the as­sas­sins re­spon­si­ble for Boney’s killing may have been rogue law en­force­ment el­e­ments for hire by the un­der­world.

Boney’s killing sparked im­me­di­ate out­rage in the Laven­tille area, as gang­sters al­leged­ly loy­al to Boney shot and killed a man mo­ments lat­er.

When the Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the scene where Boney was killed, po­lice had cor­doned off the left lane of the high­way, while Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tors searched the area for spent shells and oth­er ev­i­dence.

Ve­hic­u­lar traf­fic was brought to a stop for a few min­utes by of­fi­cers as they processed the scene, which led to a traf­fic pile-up on both lanes of the high­way.

Mo­torists and pas­sen­gers were seen try­ing to take pic­tures and videos of the scene.

Min­is­ter vows there’ll be no up­surge in vi­o­lence

Res­i­dents from the John John area yes­ter­day de­clined to com­ment on the in­ci­dent. How­ev­er, they ex­pressed con­cern over a pos­si­ble gang war and called for a heavy pres­ence of sol­diers and po­lice in the com­mu­ni­ty for the rest of the day and every day be­yond the week­end.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia briefly in a tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion, Boney’s sis­ter Dix­ie Ann con­firmed that she was able to view his body but said she couldn’t speak more on his mur­der or any­thing else.

How­ev­er, sources in John John con­firmed that an emer­gency meet­ing was called by Boney’s “lieu­tenants” to analyse the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing his mur­der and to put to­geth­er a list of names/gangs who could be re­spon­si­ble.

Po­lice sources said they are now prepar­ing for a spree of reprisal mur­ders and shoot­ings.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds said the killing of Boney is un­der “se­ri­ous and prompt” in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Hinds said he is await­ing a fur­ther re­port.

He al­so con­firmed that as Laven­tille West MP he had heard about “some shoot­ings ” and the clo­sure of two health cen­tres—Suc­cess Laven­tille and Up­per Laven­tille Health Cen­tres— but said he could not say for sure if it was con­nect­ed to Boney’s killing.

“But I do know once that kind of shoot­ing is tak­ing place again, I have been in­formed by the po­lice that they are on their usu­al pa­trols in the area, ex­ert­ing their usu­al pres­ence and will do what they have to do to en­sure that that kind of thing does not con­tin­ue, if it is in fact that it hap­pened, and to bring safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty and peace to the peo­ple of Laven­tille,” Hinds said.

Hinds said he was con­fi­dent that things will not get out of hand, “I am con­fi­dent that the pres­ence of law en­force­ment plat­forms all over Trinidad and To­ba­go has been able to and con­tin­ue to con­tain that type of volatil­i­ty. So I’m con­fi­dent that it will not get out of hand. We have been grap­pling with an in­crease in the num­ber of mur­ders over the last few days. This re­port is just the last of them.”

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, Boney was be­lieved to be the sec­ond biggest gang leader in the coun­try.

He had 21 sub-gangs and a rough to­tal of 600 young men un­der his com­mand. Boney sold com­pact disc’s on the streets of Port-of-Spain up un­til he took con­trol of for­mer Laven­tille “Don” Mark Guer­ra’s turf. Around that same time, he start­ed to op­er­ate a car deal­er­ship in the area.

In 2011, Boney was de­tained in con­nec­tion with an al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate then Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Boney was de­tained for a to­tal of sev­en days “for in­quiries” and was re­leased on De­cem­ber 5, 2011, with­out any charge be­ing laid against him.

He sued the State and won af­ter a High Court Judge de­ter­mined that his five-day de­ten­tion was un­law­ful. How­ev­er, his at­tempt to re­trieve $500,000 in dam­ages was re­duced to $70,000.

Al­so, Boney was found not guilty of shoot­ing a T&T De­fence Force in­tel­li­gence of­fi­cer dur­ing an in­ci­dent in 2002.

Po­lice said he had sev­er­al oth­er brush­es with the law over the years.