(Trinidad Guardian) Senseless and reckless.
This is how Kevon Lewis described the murder of his uncle, Siparia labourer Leroy Sifontis, who was held up on his way to work yesterday morning.
Sifontis, 38, fondly known as Bhal, was shot and killed as he jumped from a moving “taxi” after the driver and a front-seat passenger tried to rob him in Siparia.
Another villager, who had entered the vehicle with Sifontis, was also shot and is warded in a stable condition at the hospital.
Sifontis and a fellow villager, age 20, were on their way to work at 5.10 am when a vehicle stopped at the junction of Darsan Trace, along the Siparia Old Road, and indicated that they were working the Fyzabad route.
The men entered the back seat but when the vehicle drove about 150 feet away, the front seat passenger pointed a gun at them and announced a robbery.
Sifontis, who was dressed in an orange coverall and the other victim opened the door, and as they attempted to jump out of the vehicle they were shot. They fell on the side of the road.
Sifontis was shot in the side of his chest and died at the scene while the other man was shot in his buttocks.
Still trying to come to terms with his uncle’s murder, Keston Lewis said yesterday was the first day of the week his uncle was going to work. He said his uncle only had travelling money on him because he had planned to overnight at his job site in Chaguanas and was supposed to collect his pay today.
“Real failure with them youth man. Allyuh shoot him for what? He don’t interfere with nobody and he don’t ask nobody for nothing.”
He said his uncle would usually walk to Siparia to get transport, “but this morning, he (Sifontis) think God was with him because as he reach here he get a car.”
Lamenting that his uncle was going to work to earn an honest dollar, he said his uncle told the gunman, “I eh have nothing.”
He said the young man who was with his uncle was the first to open the door to escape, and the gunman shot at him and then his uncle.
Shaking his head, he said, “Reckless. These youths and them, no remorse, them just … I don’t know what to say again. Senseless, innocent fellah. Innocents killing.”
He said his uncle lived a simple life.
“Go to work for the week. Come home on a Friday, spend the weekend and go back to work Monday. But, through the Borough Day celebrations, he end up going a little longer (staying home) and it cost him his life.”
To the young people committing crimes, he said, “It not making sense. Find a lil job, hold down a lil and live and be comfortable and make everybody else comfortable because look at what they did, they upset a whole community…”
