RHON­DOR DOWLAT

There has been an up­surge in mur­ders and shoot­ings in the Mor­vant/Barataria ar­eas and res­i­dents are speak­ing out, al­leg­ing that it is be­cause mon­ey stolen dur­ing a rob­bery had gone miss­ing.

The lat­est mur­der/shoot­ing in­ci­dent oc­curred on Sun­day at about 6.30 pm at 8th Av­enue, Barataria North, where Se­lah Nel­son, 38, and her boyfriend were am­bushed and shot by masked gun­men at her home.

Nel­son and her boyfriend were both tak­en to hos­pi­tal, but Nel­son was pro­nounced dead. Her boyfriend is still hos­pi­talised.

Dur­ing a vis­it to the area yes­ter­day, res­i­dents spoke out, claim­ing that res­i­dents of Ve­gas and Cale­do­nia in Mor­vant had a falling out over a rob­bery that took place. “They were check­ing the mon­ey af­ter the rob­bery and the blame game start­ed, where they say­ing monies were miss­ing and that cause a big falling out, so they war­ring against each oth­er and all the shoot­ings and mur­ders have us very fear­ful for our lives,” one res­i­dent said.

“We would like to see more po­lice in the area and for the po­lice to come and clean up the area. It’s ridicu­lous and in­no­cent peo­ple can die be­cause of the non­sense. We don’t know who they are tar­get­ing but peo­ple can get killed be­cause they are from an area.”

The area where Nel­son and her boyfriend were shot bor­ders Ve­gas and Cale­do­nia and the res­i­dents are claim­ing the gun­men ac­cessed Nel­son’s house by walk­ing over the hills from Cale­do­nia area, through a foot­path, up to her house at 8th Av­enue.

North East­ern Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers said yes­ter­day they are in­creas­ing in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing and will in­crease po­lice vis­i­bil­i­ty in the area.