A late night drive to help put two children to sleep on Saturday ended in bloodshed after gunmen killed the driver and shot one of the children in the head.
Police said around 10 pm, Abu John, who lived at both Couva and Toco, Kevin Lord, 29, of Edinburgh 500, Chaguanas and Lord’s two children—Jaheim Lord, two and a half, and Salina Modeste, one—of Railway Road, Enterprise, were in a black Honda CRV driven by John when gunmen opened fire on the vehicle.
John crashed the car into a wall along Bhagaloo Trace, after the vehicle was riddled with bullets. John, police said, ran out of the vehicle and collapsed a short distance away and died. The children were taken to the Chaguanas Accident and Emergency Department where little Jaheim was stabilised and transferred to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope.
Speaking with the media at her Railway Road, Crown Trace, Enterprise home yesterday, the children’s mother, Ava Modeste, said that the shooters were crazy to have opened fire on a vehicle, unconcerned with anyone else. The 24-year-auxillary fire officer said her son was shot once in the head just above the left eye.
The bullet, she said, ricocheted off the back of his skull, then the front right side before settling in the middle of his head. She said doctors told her there was nothing they could do. “In order to keep his heart functioning, he is on life support with a low blood pressure which doctors say is not good.
“I don’t know if doctors trying to prepare us for the worse. Every spare time I get I pray that things could turn around. I feel like part of me just get snatch away. He is my first child and my only son and his father’s only son too,” Modeste said. “I have nothing to say to them (the shooters). I don’t know what to say, look how young the children is. What more can they do besides throw tantrums.
“If you see him you would not believe he is just two, people does say he is about four or five. He just a loving child.” Modeste said despite gang war between residents of Bhagaloo and Crown Trace she could venture anywhere between the two communities. She said that her son’s shooting was not related to the ongoing war between the two areas.