Trinidad Father, son executed in car

(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.