An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) says it has record­ed its low­est month­ly mur­der toll in the last decade, af­ter 22 homi­cides were record­ed last month Au­gust.

Cel­e­brat­ing this “win” yes­ter­day, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro said it had been ac­com­plished even as they con­tin­ued to op­er­ate with­in the am­bit of an on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE).

He said, “This is the low­est month­ly fig­ure to be seen in the past decade. It al­so eclipses the ear­ly 2025 state of emer­gency, as well as the re­duc­tions seen dur­ing the strict COVID-19 lock­downs, with their ac­com­pa­ny­ing cur­fews from 2020 to 2022.”

Ac­knowl­edg­ing that those in­ter­ven­tions had pro­vid­ed law en­force­ment with sim­i­lar pow­ers, he point­ed out, “We are cur­rent­ly op­er­at­ing with­out the im­po­si­tion of a cur­few or any ma­jor dis­rup­tion to the lives of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.”

With­out dis­clos­ing just what ini­tia­tives had been im­ple­ment­ed and would have con­tributed to the low­er toll, Gue­var­ro shared, “We are us­ing our in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions, dis­man­tling crim­i­nal net­works, con­fis­cat­ing weapons, and cut­ting off their meth­ods of fi­nanc­ing.”

The top cop in­sist­ed, “These are some of the tac­tics that have dri­ven this his­toric low.”

And with two homi­cides be­ing record­ed dur­ing the first two days of Sep­tem­ber, the CoP as­sured, “The TTPS con­tin­ues to stay as alert as ever.”

Is­su­ing a warn­ing to crim­i­nals seek­ing refuge as they mi­grat­ed to oth­er ar­eas in an at­tempt to elude of­fi­cers, he added, “Just know we are com­ing for you. Put down your weapons and turn away from your ill-ad­vised vo­ca­tion of crime be­cause it will not end well for you.”

The two mur­ders Gue­var­ro re­ferred to, which re­main un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion, oc­curred in Va­len­cia and San­ta Cruz be­tween Mon­day night and yes­ter­day morn­ing, re­spec­tive­ly.

In the first in­ci­dent, just be­fore mid­night on Mon­day, the body of Tee­jay Jaime Joyce was found at Den­nis Av­enue, Plan­ta­tion Road, Va­len­cia.

Res­i­dents re­port­ed hear­ing gun­shots around 11.40 pm on Mon­day and alert­ed the po­lice.

Ar­riv­ing of­fi­cers dis­cov­ered the un­em­ployed 42-year-old ly­ing mo­tion­less on his back in a dirt track ap­prox­i­mate­ly 300 feet from the road­way. He was in a dark-coloured jer­sey and blue pants and had what ap­peared to be a yel­low elec­tri­cal cord tied around his neck. Sev­er­al chop wounds were al­so seen on his head and hands, while sev­er­al 9 mm spent shell cas­ings were re­trieved near his body.

A rel­a­tive of Joyce re­port­ed hear­ing scuf­fling nois­es com­ing from his home at Den­nis Av­enue around 11 pm on Mon­day, and lat­er found a bloody trail lead­ing to a track out­side.

Rel­a­tives al­so con­firmed hear­ing gun­shots a short while lat­er, prompt­ing them to con­tact the au­thor­i­ties.

In the sec­ond in­ci­dent, a San­ta Cruz labour­er was shot sev­er­al times around 7.30 am yes­ter­day, while at a job­site at Moral­do Trace, San­ta Cruz.

The vic­tim was iden­ti­fied as Akhen­athon Black­ford, 37, of Omar Trace, San­ta Cruz. The fa­ther of an eight-year-old girl was found ly­ing on a dirt track ap­prox­i­mate­ly 50 feet off the road­way.

Re­spond­ing of­fi­cers found Black­ford, who was in a red t-shirt and brown three-quar­ter pants, clutch­ing a ham­mer in his right hand and a plas­tic buck­et at his side, but still alive.

The of­fi­cers rushed Black­ford to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, where he was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.

While rel­a­tives de­clined to speak yes­ter­day, res­i­dents who knew the de­ceased claimed he was a good man and not known to be in­volved in any crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.