New details: Woman, daughter also shot in Belmont triple murder

RYAN BA­CHOO

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

Po­lice of­fi­cers have re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that a woman and her daugh­ter were tak­en to hos­pi­tal af­ter suf­fer­ing gun­shot in­juries dur­ing the in­ci­dent in Bel­mont this morn­ing.

A child was among three peo­ple killed dur­ing a shoot­ing in Bel­mont on Wednes­day morn­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, of­fi­cers of the Port of Spain Task Force re­spond­ed to re­ports of loud ex­plo­sions near Ser­raneau Road, Bel­mont, at about 8.35 a.m.

Po­lice said of­fi­cers con­duct­ed en­quiries in the area and were di­rect­ed by res­i­dents to con­tin­ue along St Fran­cois Val­ley Road.

When of­fi­cers reached the vicin­i­ty of Hold­er Steps, they found two men ly­ing mo­tion­less on the road­way near a sil­ver Toy­ota Aqua mo­tor ve­hi­cle.

Po­lice said the iden­ti­ties of the two men had not yet been con­firmed up to Wednes­day af­ter­noon.

The TTPS said the child lat­er died while re­ceiv­ing treat­ment. The woman re­mained un­der med­ical care.

Po­lice of­fi­cers re­mained at the scene on Wednes­day as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ued.

The TTPS ap­pealed to mem­bers of the pub­lic with in­for­ma­tion on the in­ci­dent to con­tact the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion I, Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion or Crime Stop­pers at 800-TIPS.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Suzette Mar­tin, who vis­it­ed the scene along with oth­er of­fi­cers, said the in­ci­dent had caused con­cern with­in the com­mu­ni­ty and across the coun­try.

“The TTPS ex­tends sin­cere con­do­lences to the griev­ing fam­i­lies and loved ones af­fect­ed by this act,” Mar­tin said.

She said the po­lice ser­vice re­mained com­mit­ted to in­creas­ing op­er­a­tional ac­tiv­i­ty in af­fect­ed ar­eas.

“Acts of vi­o­lence in­volv­ing in­no­cent cit­i­zens, es­pe­cial­ly chil­dren, will be met with a fo­cused and re­lent­less law en­force­ment re­sponse,” Mar­tin said.

She al­so ap­pealed to the pub­lic to al­low in­ves­ti­ga­tors time to con­duct en­quiries in­to the in­ci­dent.

“We ask the pub­lic to al­low in­ves­ti­ga­tors the time and space to con­duct a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion while we con­tin­ue work­ing to bring those re­spon­si­ble be­fore the courts,” she said.

Up to Wednes­day evening, in­ves­ti­ga­tors were con­tin­u­ing en­quiries in­to the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the shoot­ing.