An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Even as Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­pressed se­ri­ous con­cern over yes­ter­day’s triple mur­der in Laven­tille, at least one res­i­dent is again call­ing for a State of Emer­gency (SoE), say­ing the coun­try’s crime sit­u­a­tion is out of con­trol.

De­clin­ing to give her name, the young woman, who is the com­pan­ion of one of the mur­dered men, said, “Yes! I think a lot of peo­ple would wel­come an­oth­er SoE in the coun­try.”

Speak­ing from the com­mu­ni­ty of Mc­Shine Lands, Laven­tille, she said the killings left sev­er­al chil­dren fa­ther­less, forc­ing moth­ers to take on the role of bread­win­ners overnight.

The vic­tims, who were shot around 1 am, were iden­ti­fied as Jesse Nel­son, Keon Alexan­der, and Dwayne Alexan­der. All three lived just a short dis­tance from where the shoot­ing oc­curred.

While many res­i­dents in the im­me­di­ate area de­clined to speak with Guardian Me­dia, one woman qui­et­ly com­ment­ed, “They were like broth­ers to me. They were good men,” be­fore flick­ing her cig­a­rette butt in­to a near­by drain. Stand­ing in her door­way, she con­firmed send­ing her chil­dren to school while anx­ious­ly await­ing their re­turn.

A man sit­ting near­by, near a pile of emp­ty pun­cheon bot­tles, said, “This is the third time they shoot up my house.” Both res­i­dents re­called the men laugh­ing and talk­ing just min­utes be­fore gun­fire erupt­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the vic­tims were lim­ing on a stair­well out­side one of the homes when three gun­men ran up and opened fire be­fore flee­ing south to­ward Strak­er Vil­lage, Laven­tille.

Yes­ter­day, the area re­mained qui­et ex­cept for bark­ing dogs, with res­i­dents keep­ing be­hind locked doors.

Di­an Nel­son, the moth­er of 33-year-old Jesse Nel­son, broke down as she de­scribed her son as a lov­ing fa­ther who was well re­spect­ed in the com­mu­ni­ty. She con­firmed that Nel­son, a fab­ri­ca­tor, had sur­vived a sim­i­lar shoot­ing in 2023, dur­ing which he was shot more than 20 times, but main­tained he had nev­er been in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

A close fe­male friend of Nel­son said, “He was a lov­ing per­son, well-known in the com­mu­ni­ty, al­ways will­ing to help. He re­spect­ed the el­der­ly and was a great fa­ther.” She not­ed that the three vic­tims were close friends who of­ten cooked and hung out to­geth­er, say­ing, “They used to cook to­geth­er, hang out to­geth­er. As they say, buss a pot and lime to­geth­er as friends.”

Re­fer­ring to the fear and qui­et in the area, she said, “This com­mu­ni­ty has lost many lives. I moved away years ago be­cause of the crime, but even be­ing back here is trau­ma­tis­ing be­cause of the blood­shed.” She called for long-term se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures to re­store law and or­der, adding, “The gov­ern­ment needs to do some­thing about the crime sit­u­a­tion be­cause it is get­ting out of hand.”

Asked if she would sup­port an­oth­er SoE, she replied, “Yeah, I think an SoE or some­thing sim­i­lar should be put in place to deal with crime be­cause it is lit­er­al­ly get­ting out of hand. How many chil­dren have to be fa­ther­less? How many moth­ers have to be­come bread­win­ners in these hard times?”

A shop­keep­er liv­ing on the hill­side op­po­site the shoot­ing site echoed the con­cern, say­ing, “They are start­ing to kill one an­oth­er in­side now. It is com­plete mad­ness.”

Gov­ern­ment re­sponse

Re­spond­ing to a ques­tion from Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives about im­me­di­ate and long-term se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures fol­low­ing the triple mur­der and the broad­er up­surge in homi­cides, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said the sit­u­a­tion had ef­fec­tive­ly placed him in “a Zone of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tion.”

He said an ear­ly-morn­ing meet­ing with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice ex­ec­u­tive had been held to im­ple­ment strate­gies aimed at mak­ing the area safer. While he de­clined to pro­vide specifics, Alexan­der said mea­sures would in­clude “tar­get­ed op­er­a­tions, as­sis­tance from teams out­side, both air and oth­er op­er­a­tions, and con­tin­ued in­ves­ti­ga­tions of gangs af­ter the SoE, which will form an in­te­gral part of on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.”

Alexan­der as­sured that the area would be treat­ed “in a par­tic­u­lar way … al­most like a zone.”

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro de­clined to com­ment on the killings or whether an­oth­er SoE was be­ing con­sid­ered.

Mean­while, the Prime Min­is­ter said she had “very se­ri­ous con­cerns” and in­tends to con­vene an­oth­er meet­ing of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC) to dis­cuss strate­gies. She de­scribed it as “re­gret­table” that Pres­i­dent’s Sen­a­tors and Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tors did not sup­port the ZOSO Bill, not­ing she had met with Ja­maica’s Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness, who praised the leg­is­la­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “There are oth­er things we can do, and when the NSC meets, we will have that dis­cus­sion.” She is ex­pect­ed to con­vene the meet­ing “very soon.”