(Trinidad Express) Road rage early yesterday morning resulted in the killing of 42-year-old Dennison Rodney of Cocorite Terrace, Cocorite.
He was shot ten times. Shortly after the killing of the father of one, the heart-wrenching cries of Rodney’s mother, Gaylene, reverberated throughout the Forensic Science Centre in St James, as she struggled to come to terms with the fact that her son had been shot down following an argument with another driver, minutes after they were involved in a vehicular accident along the west-bound lane of the Audrey Jeffers Highway.
According to police reports, Dennison Rodney was shot and killed at about 4.30 a.m. yesterday shortly after he left his home. While proceeding toward his office at Vemco Ltd at Diamond Vale Industrial Estate, Rodney, who was driving a Toyota hatchback motor vehicle, got into a minor accident along the west-bound lane. Both vehicles, police said, were observed pulling to the side of the roadway and Rodney and the other driver exited their respective cars and a confrontation ensued. Shortly afterward, Rodney was observed walking back toward his car. However, it was at this moment that loud explosions were heard and Rodney fell to the ground.
The driver of the other vehicle, police were told, was seen with an object resembling a firearm in his hand. The driver subsequently ran back to his vehicle and was seen speeding away. The police were immediately contacted and a party of officers from the Rapid Response Unit, the Western Division Task Force, the St James Police Station and the Homicide Bureau of Investigations, including Insp Dan, Cpl Gibbons and Cpl Roberts, visited the scene. The west-bound lane of the highway was immediately cordoned off until about 8 a.m., leading to a heavy pile-up of traffic as crime scene investigators searched the surrounding area for evidence.
Mom: You kill him? For what?
At the Forensic Science Centre yesterday morning, Gaylene was at times inconsolable. She said the situation was especially troubling for her as yesterday was the first time in a long while she and her son did not speak in the morning before he left for work, and it was also the first time all week that he drove to work. “You mean I have to go bury my child just so? Allyuh get in an accident and you kill him? For what? He doesn’t interfere with anybody! And you know whole week his car park on that terrace near the highway by us and he travelling to work? He didn’t take the car to work all week and this morning, the first day he take it, is the day he get killed? Nah, man! I can’t believe that,” Gaylene said. She also noted she had exams on Thursday which left her exhausted. “I reach home after 9 p.m. so and just sat down. I couldn’t bring myself to move. He end up bringing down some clothes to iron for himself and his daughter. We had a conversation, but honestly I was so tired I don’t remember what we talk about. Imagine that, I can’t remember the last conversation I had with my son,” Gaylene lamented. She said when she awoke in the morning to help her granddaughter, Sapphire, get ready for school, she heard sirens blaring on the roadway near her home, but she paid no attention to them. “I remember when I wake up I was making sure that his child get ready, and we heard the ambulance and police blaring their sirens and horns. “I remember telling Sapphire ‘like it have an accident somewhere’, but fuss I didn’t take it on, I didn’t even look out my window. Not knowing all along that my son’s body was getting cold on the ground just outside. Not knowing that my son get kill just so, just so. For no reason whatsoever! “Forty-two years on this earth and that boy never trouble a soul. Never disrespected me. Never get in trouble with the police or the law. Nothing! Only gun he ever hold was when he was in Cadets! This is madness,” she said.
Co-workers in mourning
The Express was provided with the contents of an e-mail which was forwarded to Rodney’s co-workers at Vemco yesterday. The e-mail read: “Friends this morning we lost one of our team members in very tragic circumstances. Gone is Dennison Rodney, gentleman, father, son, brother, coworker and friend to many. In listening to his coworkers and friends recollect stories this morning I can tell you he was a truly genuine person full of kindness and peaceful by nature. My own memories of him are of a very willing person who will always smile, put his head down and settle down into the task. “As a company we are truly saddened by his senseless passing. We know people will experience a range of emotions from sadness because we miss him, to joy as we remember the good times, and anger as we try to understand why he should have suffered this destiny. “All of these emotions are real and understandable, don’t be afraid to experience them, show them, or talk about them. However, be careful with anger. You should recognise it, but don’t allow it to get control of your actions, you need to control it. Talk it through either internally or find a friend to help you through it. In all that you experience remember our friend and honour his memory. “I ask that we all say a prayer for him and his family and in a very special way his young daughter who was the centre of his life.”
Attempts to contact Peter Welch, whose name appeared at the end of the e-mail yesterday, proved unsuccessful. Shot ‘at least ten times’ An autopsy performed yesterday by forensic pathologist Dr Valery Alexandrov revealed Rodney was shot “at least ten times” by his attacker. Rodney, the autopsy revealed, was shot at least eight times about the body and twice in the head. Most of the wounds, including the injuries to the head, the report indicated, were not life-threatening. But it was an injury to the chest, where a bullet perforated Rodney’s lungs and liver, which was the fatal shot, causing heavy internal haemorrhaging.
