(Trinidad Guardian) A 16-year-old schoolboy was among three killed yesterday.
Darshan Ramnauth was gunned down opposite his home in St Augustine, while another man named Geno, age unknown, was found a short distance away in the same community. Two others in the same area were injured.
Meanwhile, in an unrelated incident in El Socorro, Tahir Liverpool, 27, was killed by gunmen.
Believing gunmen had fled Warner Trace, St Augustine, seconds after shooting one of his neighbours, Darshan rushed out of his home without a care for himself and ran to where his grandmother had been cooking to make sure she was safe.
However, this act of love would cost him his life as he was confronted by one of the gunmen who ran him down and shot him multiple times. His body was found on Gregoire’s Lane.
Having just eaten, Darshan was in the washroom when the shooting began, but he ran out of the house to check on his grandmother.
The teenager, a Form Five student of the St Augustine Secondary School, was due to celebrate his birthday on February 1.
Residents said around 3 pm, a grey Toyota Corolla car turned onto Warner Trace and stopped in the middle of the road where four gunmen exited and began shooting at a group of people standing in front of someone’s home.
The group scattered when the shooting began.
Geno was found dead a short while after.
Two other men, one of whom is visually impaired, were injured during the incident. They were taken to hospital where they remained warded up to last night.
Emotionally destroyed yesterday as she gazed at the crime scene, Darshan’s mother, Dhanmatie Ramnauth, cried and shook her head saying, “I don’t know if to cry or if to run.”
Wanting to make sure the nation knew the teenager was no criminal, Ramnauth said her son, who was due to write the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) exams later this year, had a plan for his life.
Already a promising straightener and painter, she revealed that the long-term plan was for him to migrate to the US to live with his aunt.
She shared, “He stay home from school to finish the car yesterday and today, and the boy was supposed to come and pick him up, but the boy reached late.”
Ramnauth’s mother said her son had been saving up to make a trip to Tobago with his girlfriend ahead of his birthday.
Lamenting that the “innocent are getting shot,” she said some of the intended targets appeared to be walking away unscathed.
Ramnauth’s last conversation with her son took place on Monday night when she asked him if he wanted roti for breakfast yesterday morning.
When she left for work at 6 am yesterday, Darshan was asleep at home.
Acting on information relating to the getaway car, officers were able to apprehend three suspects 45 minutes later at Five Rivers, Arouca, and they allegedly recovered the four firearms used in the shooting.
The search for a fourth man continued last night.