(Trinidad Guardian) An employee from the Port-of-Spain General Hospital (PoSGH) and his father, a retiree who also worked at the hospital, were both ambushed and killed by gunmen in Laventille yesterday, while responding to a call of an accident along Picton Road involving one of their vehicles.
Fitzroy Daniel, 65, and his son Jabari, 25, were taken to the PoSGH after the attack but Daniel was pronounced dead on arrival. Jabari died while undergoing emergency surgery hours later. Both father and son lived at Boxhill Trace, Laventille.
The men were shot in the back of their heads and torsos around 12.30 pm by attackers using high-powered rifles, according to investigating officers.
The T&T Guardian was told that Jabari, who works at the PoSGH’s Engineering Department, Refrigeration, reported for duty yesterday when at shortly before noon he received a phone call from a relative informing him that one of his vehicles was involved in an accident with two other cars and a truck along Picton Road near Dan Kelly.
A friend close to the family, who wished not to be identified, said Jabari left in his red station wagon to get his father before going to the area of the accident.
“From what we hear, is that by the time they got there the fellas around there were very rowdy and things began to heat up. By then, it look like when Jabari and his dad decided to leave the scene to go back up the hill that the gunman run up on them from where the father sat in the passenger seat and opened fire,” the close friend said.
It is believed Jabari, on hearing the gunshots, stopped the car, got out and attempted to run away, but the gunman chased after him and shot him several times in the head and left side of the back. The gunman then ran off.
Police are yet to determine a motive for the killing, as although it may be linked to the accident they are not ruling out that it may have been a hit on Jabari.
At the PoSGH yesterday, Jabari’s co-workers described him as a “quiet and hard working” individual.
“All of us were very shocked to hear what happened. We knew Fitzroy very well and he retired about five years ago and just recently, I saw him and I asked him if he wasn’t ageing,” one of Jabari’s co-workers said.
“Jabari was a real nice and quiet person who was always in work. Just last week he used his other car (the blue one) to come to work and this morning (yesterday) he came with the red one.”
Meanwhile, in an unrelated incident, four people were shot in San Juan just after midnight yesterday while liming at a lane off Shende Street, Sunshine Avenue.
One of the victims, identified as Kareem Syndey, 29, was pronounced dead at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mount Hope. The others, Ronnie Seecharan, Cornelius Samuel and Davien Garth, remain warded at hospital in critical conditions.
Police said the group of men were liming when they were ambushed by gunmen at about 12.20 am. A motive is yet to be determined in that shooting incident.
The murder toll now stands at 279 for the year so far.
Investigations are continuing into both incidents.