Ex-national footballer slain in Maloney

(Trinidad Guardian) A for­mer na­tion­al un­der-20 foot­baller was shot dead dur­ing a dri­ve-by shoot­ing in Mal­oney on Wednes­day night.

Mar­cus Gomez was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Com­plex in Mount Hope. His mur­der has brought the toll to 478 for the year.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, at about 7.30 pm Gomez, al­so fond­ly called Zug­gy and Wet­man, was in his car with Ker­win Nel­son when a wag­on blocked their ve­hi­cle and its oc­cu­pants opened fire on them and drove off.

Gomez and Nel­son were hit sev­er­al times. Res­i­dents from Build­ing 20 came out to help and called the po­lice and the men were tak­en to the hos­pi­tal where Gomez was pro­nounced dead. Nel­son is still ward­ed at hos­pi­tal in a se­ri­ous but sta­ble con­di­tion.

Gomez be­gan play­ing foot­ball at the sec­ondary school lev­el and al­so played for the T&T Na­tion­al Un­der-17 and North East Stars.

A rel­a­tive of Gomez, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied, de­scribed him as some­one who loved life and foot­ball.

“He was a dif­fer­ent youth out here. We are all very hurt to know why gun­men would go af­ter them. We don’t know if it was mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty or what be­cause Mar­cus don’t trou­ble any­one.”

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.