(Trinidad Express) Two men who were asleep at their Canada Plannings Apartment at Marcano Quarry, Laventille, were shot dead by seven gunmen early yesterday.
These two murders, together with the killing of Akeem Cummings in Belmont on Wednesday reported by the Express yesterday, have brought the murder toll for the year to 336.
Hours after the latest killings, an emergency meeting with members of the Port of Spain CID and other response units was called at the Police Headquarters in Port of Spain by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Anti-Crime Operations) Mervyn Richardson and ACP Harold Phillip.
The meeting was held to discuss yesterday’s incident and the re-ignition of gang-related violence and killings in the Laventille and East Port of Spain communities.
Among those who attended the meeting were Snr Supt Wayne Boyd, head of the Port of Spain CID; ASP Stephen Grant and Insp Sahadeo Singh of the Besson Street CID and ASP Ajith Persad of the CID.
Richardson, the Express was reliably informed, expressed serious concern at yesterday’s meeting about the spate of killings in Laventille and mandated the officers to come up with anti-crime plans to curb the incidents.
Yesterday’s, killings, police said, occurred as heavy rain pounded several parts of the country including the capital city of Port of Spain.
Kurt Medina, 23, of Building A, Apartment 4-6; and Quincy Porter, 22, of Apartment 1-3, in the same building, were shot multiple times about their bodies while asleep.
Medina was at the time in bed with his pregnant wife, when seven men, armed with guns, forced their way inside and shot him multiple times, police said.
This incident occurred around 6.15 a.m. on the fourth floor of the building following which the same assailants moved to the first floor where Porter met a similar fate.
Police have described the incident as gang related but were unable to say if the killings are linked to similar murders and acts of violence in the Laventille community and last week’s gang violence at Beverly Hills, located a stone’s throw away from the Canada Plannings apartments.
Officers believed the men from a nearby gang in the area capitalised on the heavy downpour to avoid being spotted.
Medina’s girlfriend, who was too traumatised to speak with reporters yesterday, left the area in an unmarked police vehicle with some of her belongings in its tray.
She wept uncontrollably in the arms of a woman and pleaded with media photographers not to take her photograph.
At the Forensic Science Centre in St James yesterday, Medina’s only brother, who asked not to be named for fear of possible violence against him, described the incident as a sad day.
He said Medina originally hailed from Pump Trace, Picton Road, Laventille, but moved into the Canada Plannings apartment to live with his girlfriend to start a family.
Asked if Medina could have been killed because of where he previously lived, his brother said no, adding if that was the reason, it would have been done several months ago when Medina moved into the Canada Apartments.
The relative also admitted that Medina, who worked with the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP), had several run-ins with the law.
He said: “He was a loving person who go fall out with you and next two minutes you and he good again. He was looking forward to a child because his girlfriend is pregnant. The last time I saw him was like two months ago. Then he use to call me but after a while it stopped.
“I don’t know any reason why anyone would want to kill him but then again I don’t know what type of life he living over there (at his apartment). Yes, he was previously arrested and was in and out of jail for marijuana, assault and other petty crimes.”
After the shooting, police said the seven suspects were seen fleeing the area through the rain. Crime scene investigators recovered eight spent shells and four projectiles from the scene.
A team of officers from the Besson Street CID and the Region II Homicide Bureau of Investigations led by ASP Stephen Grand, Insp Sahadeo Singh, Ag Insp Williams, Cpls Paul and Hinkson and PC Narine visited the scene.
Shortly after officers left the scene of the killing, officers from the Inter-Agency and Port of Spain Task Force responded to a report of a shooting at Straker Village, Picton Road, Laventille just around 1.30 p.m.
When they got to the scene, they found 35-year-old Wilkie Alleyne of Lightpole 54, nursing gunshot injuries about the body. He was taken to the Port of Spain General Hospital where up to late yesterday he was undergoing treatment.
Police said Alleyne was at his home in company with his wife and children when several men begun banging on their front door announcing they were police. The men then forced their way inside following which Alleyne begun to run. As he jumped through a window to escape his attackers, the men opened fire on him hitting him in the left arm and left abdomen.
A motive for the incident has not yet been established by police. PC Narine of the Besson Street CID is probing the incident.
