(Trinidad Guardian) Wrong place at the wrong time.
That’s the only explanation relatives of maxi taxi owner/operator Stevenson Sandiford have for why he was gunned down on Friday night. Sandiford, 39, of Railway Road, Couva, a father of six, was killed while visiting a friend in California.
Investigators told Guardian Media that around 8.50 pm Sandiford was with two other men standing in an open yard at Junon Street West when a white AD wagon pulled alongside and a gunman sitting in the front passenger of the vehicle opened fire on the men.
Sandiford fell into the drain and died while another man, Rakkim Best, 27, of Moruga, was shot on his right hand and foot. Best is warded in a stable condition at the San Fernando General Hospital.
Sandiford’s relatives were in tears when Guardian Media visited his home yesterday.
His common-law-wife Nicola Devett with whom he has two children said her husband had a hired job to do yesterday so he spent Friday working on his maxi.
She said he left about just after 8 pm to go the gas station and then visit his friend in California. She recalled, “I find he talking too long I call him. He say, ‘girl I coming, five minutes and I will be home’.
“Within that five minutes that was it.” Describing him as a good and law-abiding person, she said he would go out of his way to help anyone. Devett explained that he had been taking care of their two children since January while she was in barracks training to become a police officer.
“He was in the wrong in place in time. He was not involved in nothing. He had no threats. I home I actually training police and this is the sixth month since I start he has been home with the baby. He haven’t even work, probably on the weekends when I off is when he will go and work. Other than that he home whole day,” she explained.
Describing the crime situation as terrible, she said, “We as officers need to come out there and work and take down these people because I mean is innocent persons dying.” Devett said the state of crime in the country is one of the reasons she decided to become a police officer.
She said her husband was supportive of her career choice.
As she broke down in tears, Annette Banfield said Sandiford, the eldest of seven children, never had any problems with the law and was a very nice person.
Saying that she never expected he would die in this manner, she lamented, “I already gone though this and I would not want it to happen to anyone else. I feel like could dead right now.”
Sandiford’s children range from 16 years to two years-old.
Homicide detectives are investigating.
Sandiford’s killing pushed the country’s murder count to 224 for the year.