RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

A neigh­bour­hood wake turned in­to a bloody mur­der scene af­ter three peo­ple were killed and three oth­ers were in­jured at a house of mourn­ing in Cara­pichaima ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing.

The dead men were iden­ti­fied as Ke­ston “Big Shane” Lawrence, 30, of La­m­ont Street, Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas; Dwayne Charles, 32, of New Set­tle­ment, Cou­va; and Fran­cis Munroe, 40, of Are­na Road in Freeport.

The men were shot af­ter gun­men opened fire on mourn­ers at the cor­ner of Per­se­ver­ance Road and Or­ange Field Road, Cara­pichaima, around 12.35 am.

Po­lice said the oth­er mourn­ers who were in­jured, among them a woman who was hit in her legs, re­ceived treat­ment at the Cou­va Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal.

Po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors sus­pect Lawrence was the tar­get and the gun­men fol­lowed him to the wake. They said there was an at­tempt on his life a few years ago, as he was known to be in­volved in the drug trade.

The gun­men, po­lice said, walked through a bushy, mud­dy track and opened fire on him as he was look­ing on at a card game. Lawrence had on­ly ar­rived at the wake about two min­utes be­fore he was killed.

The hail of bul­lets sent scores of peo­ple, in­clud­ing chil­dren, scam­per­ing for safe­ty, even in­to homes near­by, in the usu­al­ly qui­et com­mu­ni­ty.

Speak­ing with the Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, neigh­bour Mo­han Ram­nath said he was thank­ing God for life, as he was asleep when the at­tack oc­curred.

“I lie down on my bed sleep­ing and just so I just hear shots. I roll off my bed. I hear the bul­lets falling on the roof of my house. When I come out I see a man dey sit down on the chair here so hang up. He gets shot and a next man lie down dey on the road. Every­body else run and thing. Well, whoso­ev­er, it had some gyal sit down dey that get shoot.”

Ram­nath added, “One run in­side the toi­let by me and an­oth­er one run in­side my room. It had an In­di­an fel­la me ain’t know, he run with a chair be­hind he back. Me ain’t know if the chair could block the bul­let.”

The vic­tims were all at­tend­ing the wake of a 40-year-old man who died of nat­ur­al caus­es.

Res­i­dents said yes­ter­day’s in­ci­dent was just an­oth­er one in the com­mu­ni­ty in re­cent months that had left them shak­en and very con­cerned.

On Au­gust 10, Cen­tral Bank em­ploy­ee Dar­ren Nand­lal sac­ri­ficed his life for his wife, an at­tor­ney, when gun­men stormed in­to his in-laws’ Cara­pichaima home. That house sits right across the road from where yes­ter­day’s mass shoot­ing took place.

In that in­ci­dent, two masked men, one armed with a gun, broke in­to the house of the at­tor­ney’s 80-year-old rel­a­tive and de­mand­ed he tell them where she was. The men then went up­stairs where they at­tempt­ed to go in­to a bed­room where Nand­lal and his wife were at the time.

The woman, po­lice said, on see­ing the men, ran to her hus­band, who shield­ed her from them and as the gun­men at­tempt­ed to en­ter the room, Nand­lal pushed the door to­wards them, forc­ing one of the gun­men to fire a sin­gle shot. The bul­let, po­lice said, fa­tal­ly struck Nand­lal in the head.

Nand­lal, 32, was a fi­nan­cial ex­am­in­er at the Cen­tral Bank of T&T in Port-of-Spain.

Yes­ter­day, one res­i­dent who wished not to be iden­ti­fied, said, “With the in­crease of shoot­ings no one is safe again in this coun­try, be­cause when they want you they com­ing any­where to get you and they don’t care if there are in­no­cent peo­ple and chil­dren around. It fright­en­ing out here. These things were un­heard of in the past. It’s ter­ri­ble and like the po­lice can’t con­trol or pre­vent noth­ing.”

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on the in­ci­dent, Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ryan Ram­per­sad de­scribed it as “pet­ri­fy­ing”.

“It is hor­ri­ble, trag­ic and fright­en­ing to know that peo­ple can’t even go to mourn in safe­ty any­more. Crime has got­ten so out-of-hand that it is re­al­ly pet­ri­fy­ing. It is very sad to hear that some­thing like this has hap­pened in our re­gion, not that it should have hap­pened in any oth­er re­gion but the Or­ange Field com­mu­ni­ty is a com­mu­ni­ty that is very close and dear to me be­cause I taught at the Or­ange Field Hin­du School for a cou­ple of years and quite a num­ber of stu­dents would have come out from that Or­ange Field area there, so it is re­al­ly trag­ic and sad.”

He added, “We do hope that the po­lice can ap­pre­hend the per­pe­tra­tors and bring them to jus­tice.”

Ram­per­sad as­sured res­i­dents that he is putting things in place with the po­lice to re­store the sense of safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty to the area.

“My team and I are try­ing to be proac­tive in that just a week and a half ago, we had a meet­ing with the top brass of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice. We met with DCP Sama­roo, Snr Supt of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Si­mon in a two-hour in­tense ses­sion and that in­clud­ed dis­cus­sions for more vis­i­bil­i­ty and more pa­trols by the TTPS with­in our re­gion of Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro. We have al­so asked for the re­open­ing of the San Raphael and Bras­so po­lice sta­tions. We have asked for com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing to be more ac­tive in the re­gion. Al­so, for more re­sources to be de­ployed to the sta­tions that are al­ready as­signed in our re­gion.”

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.