Trinidad Father, son executed in car

Clevon Gill, 34, of Frederick Street, Curepe (left). Keyon Grill (right)
Clevon Gill, 34, of Frederick Street, Curepe (left). Keyon Grill (right)

(Trinidad Guardian) Dana Pe­ruza last saw and spoke with her son Key­on “Geno” Gill around 7 pm on Thurs­day as she or­dered KFC for din­ner.

Leav­ing Key­on be­hind as she left with fam­i­ly mem­bers to col­lect the or­der, Pe­ruza said up­on her re­turn, she learned he had al­ready left to spend the week­end with his fa­ther, which was nor­mal.

 
Com­fort­able in the knowl­edge that Gill, 12, was safe in his fa­ther’s care, the 32-year-old moth­er of one said she was hor­ri­fied and shocked to learn on so­cial me­dia that the two had been ex­e­cut­ed in a car on Fri­day night.

The bod­ies of Gill, a Form One stu­dent of the San Juan Sec­ondary School and his fa­ther, Clevon Gill, 34, of Fred­er­ick Street, Curepe, were found in a parked car along La­dy Chan­cel­lor Hill, Port-of-Spain, around 6.30 pm.

Po­lice found cu­ri­ous on­look­ers gath­ered around the heav­i­ly tint­ed pearl-white Nis­san Syl­phy.

Up­on check­ing, they found the two de­ceased.

They had both been shot through the back of the head.

Foren­sic of­fi­cers were able to re­cov­er two 9 mm shells from the floor of the back seat, while a bul­let was found lodged in the dash­board on the dri­ver’s side.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia from her Laven­tille Road, Febeau Vil­lage home yes­ter­day, Pe­ruza and her moth­er wept open­ly as they plead­ed with mem­bers of the pub­lic to stop ma­lign­ing her de­ceased son.

She said, “Peo­ple don’t know what is go­ing on and they just like to talk. They say­ing my child is a zess­er and he is 15, but that is not true. My child was a lov­ing child, he was a dar­ling with a smile to light up the world.”

This was echoed by Key­on’s grand­moth­er who re­called his pas­sion for cook­ing lentils and dumplings and al­so mak­ing bake.

Re­veal­ing her son loved foot­ball and play­ing his PS4, Pe­ruza said Key­on was the on­ly child for both par­ents.

Pe­ruza said, “His fa­ther would nev­er put his child’s life in dan­ger. His fa­ther loved the dirt his son walked on and for him, every­thing was his fa­ther.”

Des­per­ate for an­swers, Pe­ruza hugged a pil­low to her chest as she ques­tioned, “How do I live now? What am I to do? How do I car­ry on be­cause he was my life, he was my life, he was my life.”

Usu­al­ly cel­e­brat­ing her birth­day one day ahead of her son on June 2, Pe­ruza said she had promised Key­on a trip to Pana­ma next year so he had been work­ing on sav­ing his spend­ing mon­ey.

She tear­ful­ly re­vealed, “For Christ­mas, he asked every­body for the same thing, clothes and mon­ey.”

Ad­mit­ting they were aware the se­nior Gill had been de­port­ed from Grena­da last month, Pe­ruza and her fam­i­ly were not able to share any in­for­ma­tion as to the fa­ther’s busi­ness deal­ings.

Ac­cord­ing to lo­cal po­lice, Kevon Gill was ar­rest­ed in Grena­da on No­vem­ber 18, af­ter US $20,000 was found on him and deemed to be pro­ceeds of crime.

 
The in­for­ma­tion which was ver­i­fied by In­ter­pol of­fi­cers al­so claimed Gill was con­vict­ed on No­vem­ber 22, fol­low­ing which he was de­port­ed to Trinidad on No­vem­ber 25.

Pe­ruza and her fam­i­ly called for jus­tice.His grand­moth­er said, “Imag­ine it have mon­sters walk­ing around this place and they leave them and kill our ba­by. He wasn’t sell­ing drugs or guns and weed. I hope the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice deals with them.”

CoP: The Na­tion Needs To Be Con­cerned For Every Per­son Killed

Con­tact­ed for a com­ment on the mur­der rate which climbed past the 500 mark on Thurs­day, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith lashed out at those ex­press­ing con­cerns over the fig­ure.

In a What­sApp state­ment, Grif­fith said, “It should not on­ly be a mat­ter of con­cern that we have reached our 500th vic­tim, but it should be a mat­ter of con­cern to the na­tion for the 499 be­fore that; as for every per­son killed, the na­tion has lost a cit­i­zen.

“The Po­lice Ser­vice is do­ing all that it can, so ob­vi­ous­ly there is a con­cern.”

Turn­ing the spot­light on those de­fend­ing crim­i­nals, the COP added, “In­stead of ask­ing the po­lice if we are con­cerned, I will ask that the same ques­tion be asked to those who de­fend, as their jobs, the cold-blood­ed mur­der­ers to get them back on the streets as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, you should ask them that ques­tion.

“To those in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem who grant bail to crim­i­nal el­e­ments, where bail is grant­ed eas­i­er than get­ting dou­bles on a Sat­ur­day morn­ing, who try to jus­ti­fy that, you should ask them their view.

Grif­fith said there was lit­tle or noth­ing po­lice can do be­fore some­one is about to com­mit an act, “the best way to min­imise such homi­cides is to im­ple­ment poli­cies be­fore the ac­tion, which is what we have been do­ing. We have been ar­rest­ing per­sons in pos­ses­sion of firearms, how­ev­er, it be­comes more dif­fi­cult if not im­pos­si­ble when per­sons are held they are sim­ply giv­en a ‘red car­pet’ to go back to streets to fin­ish the job they start­ed.”

Just 25 days ago, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young lament­ed the run­away crime rate, as they both at­tempt­ed to use the mur­der rate to lob­by sup­port for the Bail Amend­ment Bill which was be­ing de­bat­ed in the Sen­ate.

At the time, T&T’s mur­der rate was close to the 500 mark. The 2018 mur­der toll was 516.

The bill pro­pos­es de­ny­ing bail for per­sons found with firearms for the first time in­clud­ing those traf­fick­ing weapons or pos­sess­ing pro­hib­it­ed weapons such as ar­tillery, au­to­mat­ic weapons, bombs, mis­siles, grenades.

 
Al-Rawi claimed T&T was at war and while firearms are be­ing de­tect­ed, cul­prits were not be­ing caught.