Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing three mur­ders that oc­curred be­tween 12.30 am and 11 am yes­ter­day in north Trinidad, push­ing the na­tion­al homi­cide toll to 272 for the year. For the same pe­ri­od in 2024, the fig­ure stood at 475.

The first killing took place around 12.35 am in Tu­na­puna, when An­ton George, 32, was shot mul­ti­ple times while walk­ing home at Up­per Achong Hill, off Balt­haz­ar Street.

George, a me­chan­i­cal en­gi­neer, is be­lieved to have been ap­proached by a lone as­sailant who opened fire. Res­i­dents who came out af­ter hear­ing gun­shots found him ly­ing in a grassy track, his house keys be­side him.

His moth­er and a neigh­bour rushed him to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC), Mt Hope, where he suc­cumbed to his in­juries at 12.57 am.

The sec­ond in­ci­dent oc­curred around 9.30 am at Boot Hill, Trou Macaque, Laven­tille. The vic­tim, iden­ti­fied as De­von Hope, 34, of Trou Macaque Road, was found ly­ing in the road­way with mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds.

Po­lice of­fi­cers on mo­bile pa­trol re­spond­ed to re­ports of a shoot­ing and se­cured the scene, where they re­cov­ered nine spent 9 mm shell cas­ings.

The Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer de­clared Hope dead and or­dered his body re­moved to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, for an au­top­sy.

Around 11 am, Ja­son “Cut­ty” Joseph was killed in Mor­vant. Po­lice said Joseph was walk­ing through a track at First Street, Up­per Sixth Av­enue, Mal­ick Ex­ten­sion, when he was shot by a masked gun­man.

Res­i­dents rushed Joseph to the EWM­SC, but he was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.