The PH taxi dri­ver who was shot by an un­known gun­man in El Do­ra­do, Tu­na­puna, yes­ter­day, re­mains ward­ed in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion at hos­pi­tal.

The shoot­ing, which took place around 8.30 am at Govia Street, saw res­i­dents and school chil­dren scam­per­ing for safe­ty as the sus­pect fired up­on the dri­ver, who had been stand­ing on the pave­ment which leads off the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route (PBR) af­ter pulling up on the PH stand, near the Palance bar.

Re­ports said the gun­man was in a car which pulled up close to PH dri­ver Ardiel Small's ve­hi­cle. One of the oc­cu­pants got out and opened fire on the PH dri­ver, who was still stand­ing out­side his car, even as school chil­dren were near­by. Two oth­er gun­men got out the sus­pects’ ve­hi­cle and al­so opened fire on the PH dri­ver. An­oth­er man, be­lieved to be a po­lice of­fi­cer, who was on the PBR, re­spond­ed to the gun­shots and fired at the sus­pects, who ran in­to their car and es­caped.

As sur­round­ing res­i­dents peeked out, busi­ness own­ers on the street closed their gates, un­cer­tain of what was hap­pen­ing.

The in­jured man was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope, where he was treat­ed and ward­ed.

Cu­ri­ous per­sons lat­er lined the road­way lead­ing from Cau­ra Junc­tion talk­ing about the brazen shoot­ing, whilst maxi taxi dri­vers and mo­torists along the PBR slowed to see what was tak­ing place, as re­spond­ing of­fi­cers re-di­rect­ed pedes­tri­ans away from the crime scene.

Of­fi­cers be­lieve yes­ter­day’s shoot­ing may be a reprisal to Sat­ur­day’s dou­ble mur­der at Ceme­tery Street, Tu­na­puna, in which two men were killed and a third wound­ed.

Nir­mal Ram­baran, 18, and Elvis Her­nan­dez, 28, both of Prescott Lane, Tu­na­puna, were killed by an un­known gun­man as they sat un­der a tree in the Tu­na­puna Ceme­tery around 10.30 am. Al­so wound­ed in that in­ci­dent was a 39-year-old of Strak­er Lane, Tu­na­puna. Foren­sic of­fi­cials re­cov­ered 22 9mm shell cas­ings, along with one live round of 9mm am­mu­ni­tion and one black ski mask at the scene.

—A Paul