Trinidad police link midday Maraval murder to Sandman’s killing

(Trinidad Guardian) One man is dead and an­oth­er in­jured dur­ing a dri­ve-by shoot­ing near the bas­ket­ball court in Mar­aval just a stone’s throw away from Diego Mar­tin East MP of­fice Colm Im­bert.

The de­ceased has been iden­ti­fied as Shaquille al­so known as ‘Pa­pa’.

The oth­er wound­ed man was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal.

Pre­lim­i­nary re­ports stat­ed that Shaquille was dri­ving out on­to the Morne Co­co Road at about 12.20 pm when a heav­i­ly tint­ed sil­ver SUV drove past and its oc­cu­pants opened fire. Shaquille died be­hind the steer­ing wheel.

Po­lice be­lieve it’s a reprisal shoot­ing for Vaughn ‘Sand­man’ Mieres, his wife, Ali­ka “Let­ty” De­here and two oth­ers’ mur­der that oc­curred at his Las Cuevas home on Ju­ly 25.

Mieres, 44, was known as a King­pin, a re­put­ed drug and gun smug­gler.

It is be­lieved that the killings were linked to an in­ci­dent in June where there was an at­tempt on the lives of two of Mieres’ chil­dren.

Po­lice said they re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that Mieres found out who were the mas­ter­minds and hench­men in­volved in that at­tack and were sus­pect­ed to be plan­ning “dead­ly re­venge”.

On June 12, gun­men opened fire on a ve­hi­cle trans­port­ing two of Mieres’ chil­dren along Bel­mont Cir­cu­lar Road, near Prov­i­dence Girls’ Catholic School, a short dis­tance away from the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion.

Three stu­dents were treat­ed for in­ju­ries and men­tal trau­ma, af­ter the dri­ve-by shoot­ing.

The dri­ver of the van trans­port­ing the chil­dren, James Gor­don, of Mara­cas was al­so shot but man­aged to es­cape by run­ning away.

Two of the in­ju­red, aged six and 15, were iden­ti­fied as Mieres’ chil­dren.

They were tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for emer­gency treat­ment.

An­oth­er 18-year-old stu­dent was shot in her leg.

Mieres was ac­cused of be­ing the one be­hind Ju­ly 19 dri­ve-by shoot­ing in Mar­aval where two men were killed.

That shoot­ing oc­curred at 11.45 pm in Mar­aval.

Ian Sharpe and Keon Tim­o­thy were lim­ing near to a bas­ket­ball court along Morne Co­co Road when a ve­hi­cle drove by and the oc­cu­pants opened fire on them.

Both men were tak­en for med­ical treat­ment but suc­cumbed to their in­juries.