With tensions high in Fifth Company, Princes Town, following multiple shootings and the killing of Lance Corporal Marcus Gay, Southern Division Task Force police officers and personnel from the T&T Regiment have been deployed in the community.
Residents were still bracing for the return of army officers in the Dougla City area, who they said threatened to wipe out even women and children in their pursuit of Gay’s military issued firearm.
Contacted on the residents’ claim, T&T Defence Force senior public affairs officer, Flight Lieutenant Monique Sprott would only say that the “TTPS (Police Service) is currently investigating.”
Investigators said their probe into the shootings was continuing and they were taking statements with the hope of identifying the shooters soon.
Six people were shot, including Gay, his colleague Cpl Mark Blunt, brothers Victor and Vincent Brown, Gerard Graham and church member Renwick St Clair.
All of the victims remain warded at the San Fernando General Hospital up to yesterday with two of them under police guard.
The Browns’ younger brother, Isaiah Gibson, said they were doing better and Vincent has been talking. He said residents were a bit calmer when they learned that their injured neighbours were doing better.
Police said that around 11.15 pm on Monday, St Mary’s officers responded to a report of a shooting in Fifth Company and found Blunt lying on the roadway with gunshot wounds to his leg. Gay was lying in the grass at the side of an unfinished house with multiple gunshot wounds.
Officers also found Victor, 30, with a gunshot wound to his head and Vincent, 26, with a wound to his chest, Gerard Graham, suffered a gunshot wound to his hand and St Clair had been shot in his leg. They were all taken to the Princes Town District Health Facility where Gay was pronounced dead.
The soldiers were on reportedly on surveillance duty when they went to a wake of Angela Willie, the mother of Victor and Vincent.
The officers, who were members of an army intelligence unit were working alongside the Southern Division police to locate a suspect, who is a relative of Willie.
They said the suspect was wanted for a murder and assault among other crimes. A 26-year-old man from St Mary is being looked for as part of the police investigation.