(Trinidad Express) A year after his cousin was shot and killed, and there was an attempt to kill his brother and nephew, a South Oropouche man was gunned down outside his home on Saturday night.
Dennis Jugoon, 21, also known as “Fats”, was ambushed and chased by a gunman who shot him in the head shortly before midnight outside his home on Lezama Trace, St John’s.
Jugoon’s brother, Gary, 39, who along with his son, Romel, 20, was the target of gunmen on the night of June 6, 2023, said he was frustrated by the bloodshed that had befallen his family.
Jugoon’s cousin, Anesh Ramrattan, 42, who lived next door to Jugoon, was shot and killed on May 24, 2023.
“I am not fearful. I am fed-up,” said Gary to the Express when interviewed at his brother’s home on Lezama Trace in St John’s hours after the killing.
A police report on the latest killing stated that several gunshots were heard in the community around 11.48 p.m.
When relatives and neighbours of Jugoon checked the area, they found his body in the bushes at the back of his house, unresponsive and motionless. A district medical officer pronounced him dead at the scene and the body was removed pending a post-mortem at the Forensic Science Centre, Federation Park.
Crime scene investigators retrieved one spent nine-millimetre shell casing and a cellphone at the scene.
Gary and another relative showed the Express another spent shell casing found in their yard.
He said that the attacks by gunmen began in May last year.
“It was a drug deal that went bad with my cousin. The first to get killed was Hillary James, alias ‘Fish’. Then they killed my cousin, Anesh, in Belle Vue. Then they shoot at me and my son right here. Now they killed my brother. I have to move out of here because I have a wife and three small children aged 12, six and two and I have to keep them safe. I do not believe I will get justice. This incident with my brother is hurting. This one is a different kind of feeling,” he said.
Gary said he last spoke to his brother about 20 minutes before he was killed.
“My brother went boat racing in Chaguaramas and returned around 4 p.m. Just before he got killed, we had a stupid talk and a quarrel but that was a normal thing. The music was playing loud so I didn’t hear anything. I believe the shooter came from the back near the savannah and waited on him until he came outside,” he said.
Gary said that he was disappointed that the police had not arrested anyone in the killings nor for the attempt on his and his son’s lives.
Detectives of the Homicide Bureau of Region III and the Oropouche Police Station responded to the scene and WPC Rampersad is continuing investigations.
The murder toll now stands at 234.
