One man is dead and another injured during a drive-by shooting near the basketball court in Maraval just a stone’s throw away from Diego Martin North/East MP Colm Imbert’s office yesterday.
The deceased was identified as Shaquille “Papa” Eugene of Nicholas Street.
The wounded man, police said, was not shot but was injured when he was struck by broken glass. He was taken to the nearby health centre where he was treated and discharged.
According to a police report, at about 11.53 am Eugene was parked along the Morne Coco Road opposite to the basketball court in a black Kia motorcar when a heavily tinted silver SUV drove past him. The vehicle stopped and a man alighted from the passenger seat and ran up to the driver’s side where Eugene was seated and opened fire. Eugene attempted to drive away but instead reversed his car from the main road next to the basketball court where he died behind the steering wheel.
Several onlookers told Guardian Media they did not see what happened.
One man said: “Family...the war now start. Them fellas fighting over the drug trade and turf and it will never end and no one will never see or hear anything because we love our own lives and don’t want to be killed for saying anything. We don’t even trust the police to tell them certain things neither all those anonymous organisations to call and report crimes. The best thing is to stay quiet - turn a blind eye and deaf ear. That is the reality of it.”
However, police believe Eugene’s murder was a reprisal shooting for the murder of Vaughn ‘Sandman’ Mieres, his wife, Alika “Letty” Dehere and two others, who were all murdered at Mieres’ Las Cuevas home on July 25.
Mieres, 44, was known as a Kingpin, a reputed drug and gun smuggler.
It was said that those killings were linked to an incident in June where there was an attempt on the lives of two of Mieres’ children.
Police said then that they received information that Mieres found out who was the mastermind and henchmen involved in that attack and were suspected to be planning “deadly revenge”.
On June 12, gunmen opened fire on a vehicle transporting two of Mieres’ children along Belmont Circular Road, near Providence Girls’ Catholic School, a short distance away from the Belmont Police Station.
Three students were treated for injuries and mental trauma, after the drive-by shooting.
The driver of the van transporting the children, James Gordon, of Maracas was also shot but managed to escape by running away.
Two of the injured, aged six and 15, were identified as Mieres’ children.
Mieres was accused of being the one behind the July 19 drive-by shooting in Maraval in which two men - Ian Sharpe and Keon Timothy - were killed.
Morvant Murder
In an unrelated incident, at about 6.20 pm on Saturday police found Tyrel Jones, 25, lying on the ground with multiple gunshot wounds at Basement Road in Morvant. He was taken to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Jones’ relatives, who were at Forensic Science Centre said they believe that he went to the area to sell a phone for money.
They said that Jones was a “hustler” and did not have a fixed place of abode.
An aunt and one of his brothers admitted that he was “passed delinquent” but strongly believed that there was something spiritually wrong with him.
His aunt said his mother died five years ago from a heart attack and said that she strongly believed that her death affected him, “he was struggling with his higher and lower level of consciousness...it passed the delinquent stage. He was struggling with good and evil in his head. His mother passed away five years ago and from that, he stopped listening to people. We offered to get psychiatric help for him but he would say he good and that we mad. I believe he was possessed with some kind of evil and there was no coming back.”
