(Trinidad Guardian) Before two gunmen shot him dead, Danny Mehalal cried out to his girlfriend urging her to run, shortly before the gunmen fired multiple bullets at him from an AK-47 rifle.
His body was not yet cold when two police officers ran down the Marabella Trainline and found him bleeding. They immediately offered help to his family but the two gunmen managed to escape.
A witness, who requested anonymity, said Mehalal was involved in a relationship with a Marabella woman for the past nine months. He often stayed the night at her place, along with her two children.
Mehalal owned three coconut vending booths and had no involvement in crime, the source added.
Speaking at the scene, Mehalal’s girlfriend, who requested anonymity, said Mehalal might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She said just before midnight, they heard loud gunshots on the Trainline.
“Danny was sitting upstairs. I don’t know why he went downstairs. I came outside to see why he was taking long and then Danny shout out to me to run.”
She could not see anyone in the dark.
“I run in the toilet and hide, my two children went and hide. Then I heard bow, bow, bow. I was too scared to come out but by the time we called the police, two officers were already there. I don’t know how they reached here so fast. He didn’t completely dead yet when the police reached,” she added.
She noted that Danny did not know any of the people on the Trainline as he lived in Mayo.
“He used to sell coconut and market stuff. He had a blade on him which is what he uses to cut the coconut. His family want to blame me now but I could have been dead too. Danny saved my life,” the girlfriend said, wiping away tears.
Meanwhile, Danny’s mother Joan Pompey said the crime situation was out of control.
“I got up at 1 am and I was getting a pain in my chest, my belly was hurting. I went in the washroom and at about 5 o’clock they told me Danny was dead,” Pompey said.
She said the police did not give her information about her son’s death.
“This is so baffling to me, we going from station to station and nobody has nothing to say, nothing. I am not well to run up and down,” she added.
Pompey said she did not expect justice.
“That is how this country is going. Four young boys die in the Promenade and no justice. These are young people coming out in the world and now their lives over,” Pompey said.
