A six-year-old girl stops running around the yard in her Johnson Street, Enterprise, home and trains her eyes on a gun held by a police officer patrolling the area.
Turning to the nearest adult, the child asks: “The police going to shoot we?”
Her friends all stop playing and watch as the officers walk by.
Their main interaction with police officers are news reports and conversations about police killing a criminal, or being told by parents that police will come for them if they don’t behave.
As the police walk past, the children continue their playing, become lively again, running around a rough piece of rope, oblivious to the tensions caused by high criminal activity in their community.
In August 2011, Enterprise was labelled a crime hot spot by the Ministry of National Security following an upsurge in murders, police killings and gang activities.
Even before 2011, the community was plagued with social problems, such as inadequate infrastructural development, lack of public utilities, high numbers of single-parent homes, and a lack of job opportunities.
In the middle of the day, groups of children sit under trees, or on street corners playing or talking while cars drive by. There are few adults supervising and when asked about their parents, the children casually reply that their mother or father was at work.
The community began as a squatter’s settlement, with the majority of homes being built in an ad hoc manner in the 1950s and 1960s as the Chaguanas Borough grew in both size and economic activity.
The community, located in Chaguanas East, is divided into Enterprise North and Enterprise South, each spanning long stretches of the Southern Main Road and connecting through a series of streets to other parts of the large borough and to east Trinidad.
In Enterprise, the voting population is around 21,000 with an estimated living population of about 30,000 people, more than a quarter of the total population in the borough.
A T&T Sunday Guardian team visited several parts of the community, including Chrissie Terrace, Crown Trace, Johnson Street, Enterprise Street and Freedom Street last week, following the shooting of resident crime boss Selwyn “Robocop” Alexis last week Sunday.
Very few people in the community were willing to speak to the Guardian, as they feared retribution by criminal elements, and those who agreed refused to speak about the area’s crime problems.
Where most communities seek media attention over failure by local and central government to deliver on needs, residents were hesitant to complain or answer questions.
When they did though, they were quick to lay the problems regarding crime to neglected youth in the area.
“These young boys need jobs because they are on the road whole day but then again, these boys don’t want to work. They want the money but they don’t want to have to go to work,” said a 63-year-old woman who did not want to be named.
I’ll call her Esther—not her real name, of course. Esther, like a few other older people on the roads within Enterprise, sat outside her home in the afternoon heat and watched the activity in front of her home.
There are no industries in the area, and unlike the populated Chaguanas Main Road, Montrose, Felicity and Endeavour areas have very few businesses.
A few straighteners, painters and garages are scattered about the communities, but the majority of residents work in the heart of Chaguanas, which is a major business hub, or in Port-of-Spain.
The majority of people living in the community earn minimum wage, according to a source at the Chaguanas Borough Corporation.
Esther has lived in the heart of Enterprise for the past 41 years, having moved there with her husband in 1975.
“When I moved here people were just looking for a life. We used to raise cows and sell the milk. We used to know everybody business and talk about it openly.
“Now isn’t like that. We still know things but it is better to keep quiet.”
Esther said she had no complaints about her community. She has made adjustments to cope with the changes.
She no longer leaves her home before sunrise to go to the market. She goes to bed at 7 pm and stays inside whether she hears gunshots or cheers.
Esther still claims she is not worried about being harmed in her community despite noting that people frequently get robbed on Johnson Street, where she resides.
“When I look outside, the most these fellas do is drink rum and play cards. They gamble and drink and don’t disturb anybody.
“It’s the younger ones that are the problem,” she says. “They don’t care about anyone. They have no respect.”
It’s a view one police officer shared during a patrol of the area on Thursday.
“About 90 per cent of the people who live here are peaceful and loving people,” said Sergeant Thompson of the 500 Patrol, from the Chaguanas Police Station.
Thompson, who grew up in central Trinidad, is familiar with the area and has friends and family who live there.
“The crime now is different and worse than ten years ago.”
Sergeant Thompson said there was a certain recklessness and disregard for authority displayed by the younger men and women in the Central neighbourhoods.
“A lot of the things that are happening are because the younger gang members are breaking away from the older ones,” Thompson said.
“One of our assignments is to visit the secondary schools and a lot of the children there can’t read or write but they sell marijuana and tax other students.
“The young ones are learning but they are not learning the right things.”
In the past year, former head of the Central Division of the T&T Police Service increased patrols in the area in an attempt to decrease crime.
Residents said this had helped, but brazen daylight shootings in the area, videos showing young men with weapons shooting bullets into the sky, and the recent triple murder in the community paints a different picture.
“It’s dangerous living here,” said 16-year-old Faith.
A student at ASJA Girls College, Faith would, in the past, leave home at 5 am every day to go to school.
“I don’t do that anymore. I know how dangerous it is. It’s stupid but I make sure and wait until the sun is bright in the sky.” Faith said she has watched her peers drop out of school to join gangs.
“There was this boy who used to attend the Boys College (ASJA) and I saw him recently and asked why I wasn’t seeing him in school. He said he had things to do. What could you have to do that you don’t go to school?”
Shaking her head, she spoke about the young people who get caught up in criminal activities because they don’t see education as a sensible option.
“They want money and stuff but they don’t want to have to wait for it.”
Despite the negative comments about the community, Chaguanas Mayor Gopaul Boodan, who lives near Enterprise, said each community in the borough had a part to play.
“I live close to the boundary of Enterprise, where I live it is just a walking distance. I am in that community every day. I have relatives and friends who live there,” Boodan said in a telephone interview.
“Within recent times the focus has been on Enterprise because of higher crime levels but there are still peace-loving, hard-working, good people there.”
He said a lot of the crime in the community stemmed from social issues and its inception as a squatter community.
“People came and occupied lands and now it has regularised but the infrastructure for a residential community was not there,” Boodan said.
“There is also a lot of family issues, single parents and assistance from Government to take care of family’s with social security grants and giving them governmental support.
“We at the borough help with infrastructure development but they need a bigger intervention than the local government level.
“They need an intervention at the Central Government level.”
“Our councillors work as hard as possible to provide local government services but in terms of family life and employment, they give us information on people looking for employment but really Central Government needs to do more.”
Boodan said he drove through the community every day.
“You would see people at the street corner. I don’t feel intimidated, scared or frighten. I live and work among the people. There are certain areas where the whole environment needs to be cleaned up. Empty lots, semi-abandoned buildings and drainage issues. We are playing a part in terms of helping and we want the youths to show respect to law and order and develop civic responsibility.”
Boodan acknowledged the secret-keeping culture within the community when it came to crime.
“To be honest, my comment on that is that people will have certain information and that is a matter for law enforcement to get them to collaborate, but I know many people don’t feel comfortable in regard to their safety.
“They need a presence of the army and the police so people can be more comfortable to go about their lives, or a police post. It will increase people’s trust and confidence that something positive is being done and they could live happy lives.”
Community activities in Enterprise centre around football and cricket events at the two recreation grounds in the area or the basketball courts.
Community groups host sports and family days and businesses sometimes sponsor tournaments.
The football team in Crown Trace win competitions internationally and is the pride and joy of residents.
Despite these positives, residents of Enterprise are confronted with the most harsh realities of life. Shopkeepers have stories of hosing down blood from in front of their businesses.
Teenagers tell stories of older relatives being shot or shooting others. Yet no one complains.
The community continues to adapt to the effects of crime.
Do you live in Enterprise? Tell us your experiences and share your photos as we continue to explore this community.