Of the 82 murders committed for the year, 22 of them happened between 8 am to 6 pm. In most of those murders, police reports stated that people only heard the gunshots and later found the victim/s dead, even when the killings took place in areas of heavy traffic.
One such killing was the double murder of a couple in Laventille on their way to work last week.
According to police reports, Abiola Noel, 25, and Andre La Touche, 28, were leaving Noel’s Eastern Quarry, Laventille, home in a silver Nissan Tiida around 8.30 am on February 22 when gunmen approached the moving vehicle and fired several shots at it. Police said no one claimed to have seen what happened but only heard the gunshots then heard the crashing of La Touche’s car.
Another brazen attack was the killing of Ashton Villafana, near a Lotto booth, along the Southern Main Road, in Cunupia last Friday. Again police said those nearby said they heard the gunshots and later found Villafana dead. A video clip of the killing captured on a CCTV camera showed two men emerging of a green Toyota Yaris before they snuck up Villafana and opened fire.
Villafana was seated on his bicycle apparently speaking to the Lotto agent when he was attacked. The two shooters escaped in the waiting car which was later found abandoned in Enterprise, Chaguanas. This murder took place around 3.30 pm. In the video a vehicle is seen reversing as the gunmen attacked while a woman who was headed in the direction of Lotto booth turned around and ran.
Head of the Homicide Bureau Snr Supt Oswald Cudjoe told the T&T Guardian in a interview earlier this year, that the first two months of the year are usually record high number of murders. In an interview yesterday Cudjoe maintained that the increase in the murder rate compared to last year can be directly attributed to the increase in killings overall within the first two months of the year.
Cudjoe added that the murder patterns have also changed in that the murders are no longer concentrated to the Port-of-Spain Division but are more sporadic. He said that the problem of witnesses unwilling to come forward with credible information was also affecting the detection rate which as of February 26, stood at four of the then 79 committed murders.
According to homicide sources, the current murder toll is in line with the 2014 figures. That year the murder toll ended with 403 murders. As of February 26, there were 79 murders committed compared to 59 for the same period last year. There were three other murders between Saturday and yesterday, up to press time.