Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter-In­ves­tiga­tive

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Four men, in­clud­ing a 37-year-old fa­ther of two were mur­dered in four sep­a­rate shoot­ing in­ci­dents be­tween Fri­day af­ter­noon and Sat­ur­day morn­ing, tak­ing the mur­der toll to 419.

For the same pe­ri­od last year there were 423 mur­ders.

The four have been iden­ti­fied as Justin Per­reira, 20, Josi­ah James, 25, Der­ron Big­gart, 26 and Akan­ni Luke 37.

Rel­a­tives of Luke told Guardian Me­dia they be­lieved he was killed be­cause he was from an area in Bel­mont called Chi­na Town, where some men are at war with oth­ers with­in the Bel­mont com­mu­ni­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports around 4.34 pm on Fri­day, Luke, a Port Au­thor­i­ty em­ploy­ee, of Up­per St Fran­cois Val­ley Road, Bel­mont was killed when gun­men in a Nis­san Ti­i­da pulled along­side the Mit­subishi Lancer, where he was a back-seat pas­sen­ger and opened fire. The killers then sped off.

Luke was tak­en to the Port of Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal by the dri­ver of the car who was not in­jured in the at­tack. Po­lice said a five-year-old boy who was in the car as well and was al­so not harmed. Luke was de­clared dead min­utes af­ter ar­riv­ing at hos­pi­tal.

A fe­male rel­a­tive said Luke loved agri­cul­ture and his dream was to re­tire ear­ly and in­vest in busi­ness­es. She said Luke was al­so plan­ning on mov­ing out of Bel­mont be­cause of the es­ca­lat­ing gang vi­o­lence.

"He was an Orisa devo­tee and he went to prayers or would be home dur­ing his spare time. He had fun spend­ing time with his chil­dren. All he want­ed was to make sure his chil­dren nev­er lacked any­thing. That mo­ti­vat­ed him to work hard­er and be bet­ter."

She added that Luke was re­cent­ly pro­mot­ed to the rank of fore­man at the Port Au­thor­i­ty where he worked for the past 17 years. She said Luke loved to de­bate any­one on cur­rent af­fairs and en­joyed re­search­ing African his­to­ry.

About three hours af­ter Luke was killed, Big­gart, who had pre­vi­ous­ly re­port­ed to po­lice that his life was threat­ened, was killed. Po­lice said the Ojah Street, Or­ange Val­ley, PH taxi dri­ver was shot dead while so­lic­it­ing pas­sen­gers just out­side his Nis­san B-14 at Price Plaza Ch­agua­nas.

Po­lice re­port­ed that around 7.50 pm while at the south­ern en­trance of the shop­ping com­plex, Big­gart was am­bushed and shot dead.

And on Sat­ur­day morn­ing Per­reira and James were killed in sep­a­rate in­stances in Ari­ma. Po­lice said around 12.25 am Per­reira was ap­proached by a gun­man out­side his La Re­treat Road, Ari­ma home and killed.

At 4.45 am James, of Mt Zion Road in Ari­ma, was found along the East­ern Main Road, Ma­tu­ri­ta with gun­shot wounds.

Po­lice said they re­ceived a re­port of gun­shots heard and when they re­spond­ed found James at the side of the road. He was tak­en to the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal where he died while be­ing treat­ed.