(Trinidad Guardian) Another bloody weekend in T&T leaves six dead in 24 hours. Among them is a 13-year-old boy who was gunned down just outside his home. Tragedy swept Trinidad’s West, South and Tobago between Friday and yesterday, leaving families scrambling to come to terms with the violence that entered their homes. The murder toll for the year now stands at 237. The tragedy began on Friday night when Dayron Baker, 13, was killed mere metres from his Cizan Trace home in Diego Martin.
The boy, a Standard Five pupil at the Patna River Estate Primary School, left his home just before 9 pm on Friday and was headed to his grandmother’s shop two houses away to buy two band-aids when gunshots rang out. His distraught mother Natalie Baggan said even though she ran out and saw his bullet-riddled body, she still could not believe her son was dead. “I hear the shots and bawl out his name because I know he now leave, and the shots was so close, so loud,” Baggan said.
Baker was the fourth of 14 children. When the Sunday Guardian visited the scene on Saturday, the small children seemed to understand their mother’s grief. One girl, Baker’s younger sister, continually stroked her mother’s face, wiping away her tears. “He was always with me, always with me. If I had to go anywhere, he was always coming with me,” Baggan said. She said since the killing, she has had to walk back and forth along the same path where her son was murdered.
“When I run out last night and see his body, his blood was running down the hill towards my foot,” she recalled. “I have to pass there…it still have blood there,” she said. Baggan and husband Dexter Baker said Dayron was never involved in criminal activity, but they had a theory. “I think they came for someone else, and I think he saw who they were and they killed him to keep him quiet,” his father Baker said. “The people had to know the area, they had to know where they were coming.”
During the short interview, Dayron’s older brother became visibly agitated. “The police know who kill him, they know who kill my brother and they keeping quiet,” he said, walking off into the house. Western Division Police, led by Senior Superintendent Ishmael David, have not ruled out gang-related activity. In a subsequent interview with the Sunday Guardian, David said police investigators had linked one of Dayron’s relatives to criminal activity.
“We do not believe it was mistaken identity, we believe he was killed for his association,” David said. Police are continuing investigations. Police are also investigating the murder of a man in the Beetham. The man was not identified up to late yesterday. The Sunday Guardian understands that around 9.25 on Friday night, residents reported hearing loud explosions near First Street. Members of the Inter-Agency Task Force responded and found a man, believed to be in his 20s, with several gunshot wounds to his body.
