Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Weeks af­ter a quadru­ple killing at Phase One, Pow­der Mag­a­zine, Co­corite, res­i­dents say they are fear­ful the killers will re­turn for their in­tend­ed tar­gets.

On May 4, Shaquille Ot­t­ley, 22, 57-year-old An­to­nio Jack, Sadi­ki Ot­t­ley, 31, and 36-year-old Jonathan Os­mond were killed when gun­men opened fire on a group gath­ered near Build­ing F around 11 pm. Eight oth­er res­i­dents, Ken­nan Downes, 26, Jo­han An­tho­ny, 22, Jo­van Hug­gins, 27, Moses Thomas, 19, Mylesy James, 39, Ro-Vaughn Lon­don, 23, Dwayne El­liot, 36, and 34-year-old Irvin Samuel, were in­jured in the at­tack.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the area yes­ter­day, the rem­nants of flam­beaux could still be seen and the names of the de­ceased were etched in con­crete near where the shoot­ings oc­curred. A stone’s throw away from the mur­der scene, po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers were on pa­trol.

Two women, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said there is a sense of fore­bod­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“You can’t feel safe to go, you can’t feel safe to lime. Every­body just stick­ing to them­selves and lim­ing in­side. The youths and all try­ing to be in­doors lim­ing be­cause that is the safest place to be, home.”

An­oth­er woman said res­i­dents are liv­ing with that fear be­cause none of the men killed were in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties. She said the killers got the “in­no­cent ones” she is fear­ful they will re­turn to hunt down their in­tend­ed tar­gets.

“It just leaves you won­der­ing, when they com­ing back. Not if but when be­cause the peo­ple who died are not in any­thing which means who they came for they did not get,” she said.

Short­ly af­ter the killings, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Wen­dell C Wal­lace warned that mass shoot­ings might be here to stay as crim­i­nals want to send a mes­sage to their en­e­mies.

“It’s a two-way sort of sit­u­a­tion that if we can­not get the in­tend­ed tar­get, then we’re go­ing to strike at the core of your ex­is­tence, which hap­pens to be the com­mu­ni­ty or the peo­ple around you. They are send­ing that mes­sage and you know that mes­sage is be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly heinous, so that’s what I have been see­ing, that in­creas­ing trend over the past three to five years” he said.

Rad­ha Baljo, whose com­mon-law-hus­band, Os­mond, was killed in the at­tack, said she is hop­ing for jus­tice as his death has left an emo­tion­al and fi­nan­cial bur­den.

Baljo said she is com­fort­ed some­what by the pres­ence of po­lice of­fi­cers but is afraid to sleep at night.

“Right now I just look­ing for a lit­tle jus­tice for the back here. Right now, I could do with some­body to sit down and talk to and be hap­py around them. I does be fright­en to sleep where my com­mon-law hus­band was stay­ing with me,” she said.

Alana Isaac, Jack’s wid­ow, who has lived in the area for 37 years, al­so wants jus­tice.

“Every­body still in a mess. The place qui­et and peo­ple not feel­ing good at all. No­body can get over this, not now and not for a long time,” she said.