Police: Tobago’s 22nd murder gang related

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go’s 22nd mur­der vic­tim for the year is 35-year-old Alvin Daniel, who was shot in Par­latu­vi­er yes­ter­day morn­ing—a crime po­lice say is linked to drugs.

Daniel, a care­tak­er, and a fe­male col­league had just ar­rived at work on North­side Road, Par­latu­vi­er, at 4 am. Be­fore he could get out of the car, gun­men pulled up along­side, shot at him and sped off.

He died at the Rox­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal mo­ments lat­er.

While po­lice sus­pect Daniel’s mur­der might be drug-re­lat­ed, this has been de­nied by his rel­a­tives.

“He used to do his garage work. He was a very skilled straight­en­er … He was a care­tak­er of the place where he was shot in front of … The sit­u­a­tion could nev­er be good at any point in time. Some­body just los­ing their life in this way would nev­er be good,” said a rel­a­tive who did not want to be iden­ti­fied.

Po­lice said they un­der­stand that To­bag­o­ni­ans may be grow­ing frus­trat­ed, but they as­sured the pub­lic they will con­tin­ue to fight against the crim­i­nal el­e­ment.

Daniel’s death pushed To­ba­go’s mur­der count to 22, a con­tin­u­ing record for the is­land.

Snr Supt Rod­hill Kirk said po­lice are aware of the grow­ing frus­tra­tion among To­bag­o­ni­ans and as­sured that they are fight­ing with every­thing they have.

“We re­alised when we have it un­der con­trol in cer­tain ar­eas, we are see­ing that in oth­er ar­eas which aren’t known to have such ac­tiv­i­ties. We are see­ing those ar­eas are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing it,” he said.

“We are see­ing an in­crease in vi­o­lent crime and it’s not on­ly iso­lat­ed to To­ba­go, it’s hap­pen­ing through­out both is­lands. We, the po­lice, have im­ple­ment­ed a lot of mea­sures to curb it.”

Kirk plead­ed with To­bag­o­ni­ans not to breed crim­i­nals and en­cour­age crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“We still need the co­op­er­a­tion of all com­mu­ni­ties. If you see some­thing strange let us know. We may not be able to be every­where all the time, but we will be there when you need us. Stop tol­er­at­ing crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties in your area, don’t care about it when it reach­es an out-of-con­trol stage,” he said.

“We won’t give up we will be re­lent­less in our pur­suit in try­ing to make the place safe.”