Joshua Seemu­n­gal

For many years, the La Puer­ta com­mu­ni­ty in Diego Mar­tin has car­ried a rep­u­ta­tion as a crime hotspot. In­ter­mit­tent gang wars and sev­er­al mur­ders in the area since 2013 did lit­tle to help ar­gu­ments re­ject­ing the un­want­ed la­bel.

How­ev­er, fol­low­ing the Oc­to­ber 2021 mur­der of Ju­nior Daniel, the area went 22 months with­out a re­port­ed mur­der, in­di­cat­ing a change for the bet­ter. That end­ed ear­li­er this week when po­lice shot dead a res­i­dent, Josi­ah So­leyn, dur­ing a con­fronta­tion.

Re­ports in­di­cat­ed that So­leyn was want­ed in con­nec­tion with firearm-re­lat­ed of­fences and po­lice were at­tempt­ing to ar­rest him. They claimed he opened fire on them and they re­turned fire.

Fol­low­ing the killing, Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed La Puer­ta to get a sense of what crime, gang ac­tiv­i­ty and un­em­ploy­ment lev­els are like.

Res­i­dents–from young men on the block to the el­der­ly–all be­lieved that there were many “lost youth” in the area falling in­to crime as they strug­gle to find jobs and fa­cil­i­ties to en­gage in sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.

“Months ago, every so of­ten you heard some gun­shots. They killed a fel­la right in the yard where I am liv­ing. I in­tend to move out. But I have peo­ple look­ing out for me. So I’m hop­ing for the best,” an el­der­ly man who moved to the area four years ago said.

“Par­ent­ing is a se­ri­ous prob­lem. Long ago, in my days, when you were grow­ing up, they would tell you to learn a trade. But it have no pro­grammes right now to put youth in that. Half of them don’t have aca­d­e­m­ic knowl­edge ei­ther,” lament­ed Vaughn, an­oth­er el­der who did not want to be named.

He felt a work­shop for them “to learn a lit­tle trade or some­thing” in the area would leave them bet­ter off.

Vaughn’s sis­ter, Maria (name change to pro­tect her iden­ti­ty), who moved to the area three years ago, be­lieves that the dec­i­ma­tion of sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties in the com­mu­ni­ty has closed a path­way for youth in the area to unite and el­e­vate them­selves.

“Sports help. The old sta­di­um they had, the North­ern Sa­van­nah, was like a vil­lage back then. You would find peo­ple com­ing from all over to play sports. You don’t have that any­more. If it has more ac­cess to sports it would be good for the com­mu­ni­ty. It would be one love,” Maria said.

“We need more things to pull peo­ple to­geth­er. You see what is go­ing on in so­ci­ety, they have no par­ents guid­ing them, so it is hard­er for the youth to fo­cus on do­ing some­thing on their own. They end up choos­ing what they want to do, but they are not liv­ing long.”

Residents walk along La Puerta Avenue, Diego Martin, on Friday.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

Young men speak out

Two young men–Ra­heem and Ja­son (name changed)–who were by a fruit stall low­er down the road, spoke open­ly, hon­est­ly and pas­sion­ate­ly about is­sues fac­ing the area’s youth.

Ra­heem, who is in his ear­ly 30s, is un­em­ployed and does odd jobs, while Ja­son, who is in his late 20s, works in com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

As they spoke, two oth­er young men–no old­er than 21–looked on cu­ri­ous­ly from a dis­tance, seem­ing­ly in­ter­est­ed in the con­ver­sa­tion.

“It had a shoot­ing just Mon­day. They kill a youth man up the top on Mon­day…The youth and them in a lot of hous­es where they don’t have any mo­ti­va­tion. Re­al par­ents just leave their chil­dren to get big. Re­al par­ents are ne­glect­ing their chil­dren,” Ra­heem said.

“The youth and them go­ing astray be­cause of bad lead­er­ship. The el­ders run­ning com­mu­ni­ties. The el­ders have to play their part too.”

Ja­son saw it dif­fer­ent­ly. He be­lieves that youth are falling in­to lives of crime be­cause the ‘sys­tem’ was de­signed to make that hap­pen.

Ra­heem re­ject­ed his view, say­ing every­one has a choice and is re­spon­si­ble for their ac­tions.

“We have a choice, but when I watch it, the peo­ple on the top de­sign it that way. If your head is not strong, you are go­ing to fall in­to that hole. And the time you fall in­to that hole, it’s ei­ther you thief, rob, kill, steal–some­thing wrong. You just con­tin­ue do­ing some­thing wrong. Your mind has to be strong at these times,” Ja­son said.

“No mat­ter what the Gov­ern­ment says about this or that with crime, at the end of the day, crime fat­tens plen­ty of their pock­ets. That have them dri­ving all that nice cars that they dri­ve. The jail sys­tem is one of the health­i­est busi­ness­es in Trinidad. All kinds of things. Re­al mon­ey is be­ing made in that jail. You know how much men go to jail and come out with plen­ty of mon­ey?” Ra­heem added.

Ac­cord­ing to both men, while job op­por­tu­ni­ties for youth in the area have been scarce for many years, the sit­u­a­tion is worse than ever be­fore. They plead­ed for help to find jobs.

They said with­out con­nec­tions, most have to set­tle for low-pay­ing jobs like work­ing at the gro­cery, for ex­am­ple.

They be­lieve that the ar­rival of mi­grant work­ers, main­ly from Venezuela and Chi­na, cheap­ened labour, cre­at­ing an en­vi­ron­ment ripe for ex­ploita­tion.

“It’s em­ploy­ment that you can’t get any kind of im­prove­ment. Dead-end jobs. Right around the neigh­bour­hood, there are things to do, but there is no work in the neigh­bour­hood, so much less out­side. That’s how I know there is no work. This neigh­bour­hood has one of the biggest mem­bers of the PNM par­ty, and look what is go­ing on in La Puer­ta,” Ja­son lament­ed, shak­ing his head.

“And even though you may have a job, you are work­ing every day, every day, and things rais­ing. Pay not rais­ing and when it’s time for us to go back to work, the mon­ey that we have is just to go back to work … You can’t even buy a lit­tle piz­za or some­thing,” he added.

Ra­heem said in the ab­sence of op­por­tu­ni­ties, peo­ple do what they have to do to sur­vive to put food on the ta­ble.

He knows first-hand how dif­fi­cult it is as a par­ent to make ends meet.

“There are peo­ple with three to four chil­dren. I have one. I am telling you things does be dif­fi­cult to sup­port my child. At the end of the day, it is even hard to scrape up the mon­ey to even get a hair­cut. A trim now is $80/$90,” Ra­heem said.

He ad­mit­ted that some youth in the area turn to sell­ing drugs to put some mon­ey in their pock­ets.

“At the end of the day, those who do not need to do it might watch it as a bad thing, but plen­ty of peo­ple rather sell drugs than kill or thief be­cause they know for sure they are sup­ply­ing. Af­ter all, there’s a need, be­cause peo­ple need their high,” he said.

Plead­ing for help

The young men called on re­li­gious lead­ers and politi­cians to get in­to the com­mu­ni­ty and make a dif­fer­ence. They said the on­ly way to save these young men from crim­i­nal­i­ty is by go­ing in­to their homes, lis­ten­ing to their con­cerns and work­ing with them.

“Re­al hous­es have prob­lems that, in turn, make youth have prob­lems. Crime starts at home. They are just leav­ing them to grow among peers who have no di­rec­tion. The Gov­ern­ment has to help. What are they col­lect­ing all this mon­ey from peo­ple to do? Use back the mon­ey in the neigh­bour­hoods,” one youth said.

“They use the mon­ey to build places like NA­PA and SAPA–things that ain’t make sense. Ask around the neigh­bour­hoods in Trinidad–Laven­tille, Beetham, San Juan, Tu­na­puna, Curepe, San­gre Grande, Ari­ma, Tal­paro–ask any­body who gets a con­tract or a day’s work to work on any of the projects. And it’s bil­lions spent on those places, none of us got a day’s work.”

The youth in the area said an­oth­er av­enue that could pro­mote change was re­build­ing sports in the com­mu­ni­ty.

They said they’ve seen too many tal­ent­ed sports­men over the years end up dead or lost on the streets.

“There are plen­ty of youth good at crick­et, foot­ball and net­ball. Sports in Trinidad gone through. In Amer­i­ca, one of the eas­i­est ways to make it out of the ghet­to in Amer­i­ca is a sport. The sports sys­tem in La Puer­ta has bro­ken down. We don’t even have a court. The com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre had a bas­ket­ball court, but they break it down. They put a new com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre with a the­atre hall with a set of rooms. That is a waste of mon­ey, waste.

“The on­ly time you see politi­cians up here is around elec­tion time. Come up with their fake smile and try to bribe you with all kinds of stu­pid things that peo­ple around here take chain up for patch­ing holes. The neigh­bour­hood doesn’t need any holes to patch. We need hous­es to fix. We need minds to shape. There are plen­ty of peo­ple los­ing their chil­dren out here–in­no­cent. They are falling vic­tim to things that they don’t even have no part to play in. Gov­ern­ment has to take part. They have to try and get in the heads of some of these par­ents. El­ders rock back too. El­ders leave the youth to con­trol the place,” Ra­heem said.

In Oc­to­ber 2022, four res­i­dents of La Puer­ta–in­clud­ing three-year-old Naz­im Owen–were killed in a dri­ve-by shoot­ing in a ve­hi­cle along the Diego Mar­tin Main Road.

In Oc­to­ber 2021, Josi­ah So­leyn was killed fol­low­ing a con­fronta­tion with a group of men at­tend­ing the wake of a gang leader from the area.

In Au­gust 2018, two men pos­ing as po­lice of­fi­cers shot David Charles and Kurt Smith near their homes.

In 2016, broth­ers Joshua and Jerome John­son were am­bushed and killed.

In 2013, 31-year-old Mar­vin Hare­wood and his 25-year-old girl­friend were shot dead at their River­side Dri­ve home af­ter re­turn­ing home from a par­ty.

Coun­cil­lor to re­spond Mon­day

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, the MP for the Diego Mar­tin West, where La Puer­ta falls, did not re­spond to calls and a What­sApp mes­sage to his phone. The sec­re­tary of the coun­cil­lor for Glen­coe/Good­wood/La Puer­ta Am­ber Caines said the coun­cil­lor will be able to re­spond to ques­tions first thing on Mon­day morn­ing.