(Trinidad Guardian) Dillon Lucas was stabbed multiple times as he tried to protect his common-law wife from unwanted sexual advances from an older man outside a Debe casino yesterday.
Eyewitnesses said he bled to death while the police looked on.
The attacker who remains warded under police guard at the San Fernando General Hospital, also stabbed Lucas’s friend Kailash Seepersad on the hand, before being stabbed with his own knife during the scuffle.
Police said Lucas, 31, of Douglas Trace, St Mary’s was the father of five. He suffered three stabs on the chest and neck.
During an interview, Seepersad said Lucas, his common-law wife Shantal Roysam, 21, and a few of her relatives including her uncle Johnlane Ramkissoon went to lime at Cloud 9 Casino at SS Erin Road, when a stranger began making advances at Roysam and her sister.
Seepersad said the man looked much older than them.
“I said to him, ‘leave the girls, she is a little girl in front of you.’ Then he pulled out this big fish knife. He spun around and started to stab me on my hand. The rest of the people started to shout ‘Why you do that to the youth man.’ All of this took place outside the club,” Seepersad said.
Lucas jumped in the fracas and he and the attacker began rolling on the ground. The man stabbed him three times and then got up bleeding.
Roysam’s uncle Johnlane Ramkissoon, who came out of the casino, saw Lucas on the ground with blood spurting from his injuries.
He said police came afterwards and he begged them for help.
Roysam said she ran to the officers crying and begging them to help but the officers cursed her and chased her away.
“I beg the police and they were cussing we and running we. He was already bleeding. I said help me, they cuss me and run me. They said ‘go from here.’ I couldn’t go and leave him,” Roysam wailed.
Two hours later, they finally obtained transportation from a friend and took Lucas to the hospital. Roysam said the doctors told them that Lucas’s life could have been saved if he was brought into the hospital immediately.
“There are three police stations close by. The Debe, Penal and Barrackpore police could have helped us. They refused to help us. My husband could have been alive today if they had helped,” Roysam added.
Police denied yesterday that they failed to render assistance. The officers said they had called an ambulance and were waiting for the ambulance to arrive so that Lucas could be handled by professional medics.
Lucas’s relatives said yesterday that they were fearful for their lives as an associate of the attacker told them he knew where they lived. They also said they wanted police protection. An autopsy will be done on Lucas’s body today at the Forensic Science Centre today. Investigations are continuing.