An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

A man was fa­tal­ly shot at the Val­park Shop­ping Plaza in Val­sayn on Wednes­day night. Po­lice have iden­ti­fied him as Miguel Lawrence, 36, of Hol­ly­wood Road, Fan­ny Vil­lage, Point Fortin.

Re­ports said Lawrence had been par­ty­ing with his girl­friend at one of the night­clubs in the plaza when the two de­cid­ed to pur­chase a bot­tle of tequi­la from a near­by es­tab­lish­ment. They left the club around 10.50 pm, and Lawrence’s girl­friend crossed the car park to place the or­der, leav­ing him stand­ing on the north­ern side of the com­pound.

Mo­ments lat­er, gun­shots rang out. When the woman rushed out­side she found Lawrence on the ground bleed­ing from mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds. The car car­ry­ing the gun­men was seen speed­ing out of the com­pound. Al­though Emer­gency Health Ser­vices were sum­moned, Lawrence died at the scene.

While the shoot­ing prompt­ed the quick ex­o­dus of peo­ple lim­ing at the mall, it ap­peared to be busi­ness as usu­al yes­ter­day, with both ven­dors and vis­i­tors op­er­at­ing as nor­mal.

But sev­er­al ven­dors ex­pressed con­cern about what they de­scribed as lax se­cu­ri­ty at the plaza. One woman said the re­cent open­ing of sev­er­al new hang­out spots had cre­at­ed what she called a “new nor­mal”.

“The plaza was nev­er any­thing like this be­fore, but it was just with the open­ing of all these new spots that we have seen things like this now. Just last week there was an­oth­er in­ci­dent when a man drove his car in­to one of the shops,” she said.

Sev­er­al oth­er busi­ness op­er­a­tors shared sim­i­lar con­cerns, say­ing that while the night­ly crowds had grown, se­cu­ri­ty staffing had not kept pace.

One man said, “The se­cu­ri­ty is just there to try and keep an eye on peo­ple’s cars and break up fights if any­thing hap­pens, but they are not armed, and they cer­tain­ly don’t be check­ing ve­hi­cles com­ing in and out.”

An op­er­a­tor in close prox­im­i­ty to where the shoot­ing oc­curred said, “We are con­cerned about se­cu­ri­ty ... Be­cause crime has be­come such a norm, every­body seems not to be fazed by it any­more. It’s as if every­body is de­sen­si­tised.”

While one vis­i­tor to the mall said she was not alarmed, two oth­ers said they were con­cerned and would not linger.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the plaza man­ag­er’s of­fice, an of­fi­cial said they were busy and had no com­ment.

Po­lice of­fi­cers vis­it­ed the mall again yes­ter­day to con­duct en­quiries and in­ter­views.

The mo­tive for the killing re­mains un­known at this time.