“What goes around comes around.”
This was the view of one of the many victims of Selwyn “Robocop” Alexis’ crimes.
The person did not want to be named or have the crime identified when the Sunday Guardian made contact on Friday.
However, the victim said: “Let us just cut this story short. I have no interview to give...nothing, nothing. I don’t deal with that again. It is over my head.”
The victim added: “It happened already and I lived with it. I have no comments about the guy (Alexis) but I know his life.”
The victim was only aware of Alexis’ killing on Monday. Alexis was shot and killed last week Sunday outside of his business place in Enterprise, Chaguanas.
The victim said: “All this thing happened (July 17 killings) and I did not even know and when they told me about it in my workplace I just accept and said what goes around comes around and that was that. If I had anything to say it’s that I don’t want anyone to go through what I went through.”
The victim did not want to recall the details of the crime.
Alexis was a well-known career criminal who was involved in land grabbing, robberies, kidnappings and extortion, among other illegal activities. Despite his lengthy list of criminal charges, he was never convicted.
Another victim was contacted but immediately ended the call after the Sunday Guardian mentioned Alexis’ name.
Reports are that Alexis, 51, was shot at several times before he died. However, he was able to fire back shots at one of the shooters identified as Thomas “Hamza” Sharpe, of Walter Lane, Bhagaloo.
Alexis operated a grocery and car wash at Freedom Street, Enterprise, and also owned a contracting company. In 2011, during the state of emergency, he was arrested when police allegedly raided an apartment he was said to be renting at One Woodbrook Place. His rental arrangement and sources of income were said to be questionable.
How Robocop’s life progressed
Some time after the Robocop action movie was featured in 1987, Alexis was shot at by police. When he survived the wounds, villagers started calling him ‘Robocop.’ It was an alias that stuck with him for about three decades.
A villager who grew up in the same village with Alexis on Francois Road spoke with the Sunday Guardian under condition of anonymity yesterday.
She said his mother, Gene, who has since died, worked as a cashier at a swimming pool in Couva. Alexis grew up with many siblings on his mother’s and father’s side.
He attended Sunday School “normal” and participated in thanksgiving events at Baptist churches in the area.
“When he was about 16 or 17, he went to Longdenville to learn trade as a straightener and painter. He lived normal and then sometime in the 90s he started working on the Chaguanas maxi-stand, touting and extorting money.”
The woman said if people did not pay him when they parked on the stand, he would tell commuters the maxi was not ready and to use the one in the back.
“That prevented people from getting their maxis filled. That’s when he started off with the stupidness and he realised he could get easy money and people will just give in whether it was because of fear.”
She added that one time in Chaguanas there was an incident involving a brawl with the police.
“He behaved in his usual arrogant way.”
She said Alexis was known for being “cocky” whenever he spoke and would threaten and argue.
“There was a fist fight and a big brawl and that later led to him being shot later that day because police were searching for him.
“He survived the injuries and around that time the movie Robocop was out and people started calling him that because that’s kind of how he resurrected from the gunshot wounds.”
The woman said Alexis was then charged with kidnapping and was part of a “big group.”
Alexis, she said, called the shots and stayed in the background. “He would speak to you but would never get his hands dirty.”
She said: “You see the long list over the years with the kidnapping and all the crimes, he would not be there. He would sit and send them out.
He was charged because of the law, of course, she added.
He operated like ‘Chicago mafia’
The woman said Alexis’ tall and robust appearance caused many to fear him. While he never walked around threatening people, she said, “he was smart, he would use his reputation to intimidate people.”
He was a person, she said, who would play with “your brain” because of his intelligence.
The woman said: “He would try to win people over...people would report to the police that their young sons would leave home to go to his mosque. This was in the 2000’s when teenage boys were his target. He targeted them, gave them food and comfort. They became loyal and he would send them out to do these bad things.”
She said they would rob for him and steal people’s car. But then he would be crafty and create a plot where he would come out and say he knew what took place.
“That’s when he was Selwyn Alexis, the businessman from Enterprise, respected and known. He would say I have information about your car.”
That she said, came with a price tag of $5,000 to get back a car.
“He set it up in a sly way to con people. He made a lot of money that way.”
She likened his illegal practices and activities to that of the Chicago mafia. Dating back to the 1910’s, the Chicago Outfit, as it was called, was a powerful and influential, dangerous Italian-American organised crime syndicate.
The woman said Alexis entered another business where people paid protection for their businesses.
“So if you have a chicken business or what not, you paid a fee.”
A list of some of Alexis’ criminal charges:
*2016: Charged along with his son with participating in a gang riot at Crown Trace, Enterprise, as part of ongoing gang wars;
*2010: Charged along with his wife with receiving stolen arc welders;
*2010: Charged with assaulting a police officer during a confrontation in 2008;
*2009: Charged along with two others with kidnapping, as well as charges of armed robbery and being in possession of a stolen truck with cargo worth over $2 million;
*2008: Charged with two others with perverting the course of public justice; named a suspect in the 2008 murder of 48-year-old Vincentian national Vincent Simmons, who was shot dead on Nimblett Street in Enterprise;
*2003: Charged with kidnapping of a south businessman;
*2002: Charged with extortion after an arrest by the Anti-Kidnapping Squad and charges of demanding money from someone using threats.