An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Par­ents of stu­dents at­tend­ing Prov­i­dence Girls’ Catholic School in Bel­mont were sum­moned to col­lect their chil­dren even be­fore the morn­ing bell rang yes­ter­day, af­ter a gun­shot vic­tim en­tered the school’s com­pound, send­ing staff and stu­dents scream­ing and search­ing for a safe space.

Chaos broke out around 7.45 am, af­ter a Bel­mont Cir­cu­lar Road res­i­dent was shot by an armed man near the Hilton Trinidad ho­tel along the La­dy Young Road.

Of­fi­cers from the Port-of-Spain Task Force (PoSTF) were alert­ed about a shoot­ing at 7.15 am.

The 38-year-old vic­tim told po­lice he had just crossed the La­dy Young Road and walk­ing near the ho­tel when he was con­front­ed by a gun­man who shot at him sev­er­al times.

As he at­tempt­ed to es­cape the gun­man, the in­jured vic­tim re­port­ed­ly ran back to­wards Bel­mont Cir­cu­lar Road and through a track which runs at the back of the school, be­fore jump­ing the school’s perime­ter fence.

Staff and stu­dents who were present were star­tled and ran for the cov­er of class­rooms, scream­ing as they did so, as the bleed­ing man ran through the com­pound shout­ing as he made his way to front of the school.

Act­ing prin­ci­pal Krisal Gorin re­port­ed hear­ing screams and up­on check­ing, she and oth­er staff mem­bers saw the shirt­less, bleed­ing man run­ning through the school yard.

As of­fi­cers lat­er con­duct­ed a thor­ough check of the premis­es, per­mis­sion was sought from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion for stu­dents to be dis­missed, ex­cept for those who were sched­uled to write the Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil (CXC) ex­ams yes­ter­day.

Com­ment­ing on the sit­u­a­tion, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said se­nior min­istry of­fi­cials vis­it­ed the school short­ly af­ter the in­ci­dent.

Fol­low­ing the site vis­it, she con­firmed, “We de­ter­mined we would in­stall a high­er fence to the back of the school that what present­ly ex­ists.”

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands a po­lice pa­trol was post­ed out­side the school un­til ex­ams con­clud­ed yes­ter­day.

This lat­est in­ci­dent fol­lows a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion at the Bel­mont Sec­ondary School last month, when a safe­ty of­fi­cer was held up at gun­point af­ter stum­bling up­on two armed sus­pects on the farm be­hind the school.

Stu­dents there were left trau­ma­tised af­ter they wit­nessed the guard be­ing tak­en to the back of the school at gun­point. It was be­lieved that of­fi­cers on pa­trol scut­tled the plan by the gun­men, as they were spooked on hear­ing a siren and lat­er ran off, re­leas­ing the guard.

When Guardian Me­dia called Prov­i­dence around 3 pm yes­ter­day, the prin­ci­pal was said to be in a meet­ing. How­ev­er, a cir­cu­lar is­sued to all par­ents around 3.15 pm by Gorin stat­ed, “This morn­ing was a har­row­ing one but we were able to en­sure the safe­ty of all on the com­pound.”

And while class­es are ex­pect­ed to re­sume as nor­mal to­day, at least one Form One stu­dent ex­pressed fear about re­turn­ing to the school.

Shar­ing the con­cerns of a hand­ful of friends, she said, “We do not feel safe go­ing back to the school.”

She called on the au­thor­i­ties and coun­try to get a han­dle on the crime sit­u­a­tion. She al­so urged school of­fi­cials to have a clear and con­cise plan for emer­gency sit­u­a­tions at the school, so as to avoid pan­ic and con­fu­sion in the fu­ture.

Her fa­ther en­dorsed this as he too said, “There is a need for some sort of prop­er se­cu­ri­ty and a clear evac­u­a­tion rou­tine in case of an emer­gency.”

Con­tact­ed on the in­ci­dent ys­ter­day, T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin said they were quite con­cerned by the events, not­ing it dis­rupt­ed the school’s op­er­a­tions.

“In­ci­dents like these are com­ing too close and too of­ten in schools, es­pe­cial­ly in the Bel­mont area, and we are call­ing on the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ty to en­sure there are reg­u­lar pa­trols in and around the school as part of the sup­port mech­a­nism for the school.”