Beckles urges love; condemns Couva shooting

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les shared mes­sages of love and con­cern for Trinidad and To­ba­go on so­cial me­dia, re­flect­ing on Valen­tine’s Day and con­demn­ing a dead­ly shoot­ing in Cou­va.

On Valen­tine’s Day, Beck­les ex­pressed grat­i­tude for her hus­band, de­scrib­ing him as her “strength and com­fort” and prais­ing their shared pur­pose and faith. She ex­tend­ed her mes­sage to the na­tion, urg­ing cit­i­zens to em­brace pa­tience, uni­ty and kind­ness.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go is at its best when we care for one an­oth­er and choose com­pas­sion,” she wrote.

She al­so prayed for safe­ty and en­joy­ment dur­ing Car­ni­val Sat­ur­day fes­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing Kid­dies Mas and Panora­ma 2026, and en­cour­aged all to “let love lead.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader ear­li­er re­act­ed to a brazen gun at­tack near Jade Court in Lisas Gar­dens West, Cou­va, which left a woman and her boyfriend dead.

Po­lice re­port­ed that around 2:30 pm, a gun­man wear­ing a hood­ie ex­it­ed a grey Corol­la and opened fire on 38-year-old De­vaughn Tou­s­saint, who was with Amelia Her­nan­dez and their in­fant daugh­ter out­side his car. Her­nan­dez tried to pro­tect their daugh­ter but was shot sev­er­al times in a near­by park, while Tou­s­saint was killed at the scene.

Their daugh­ter es­caped un­harmed. Oth­er chil­dren in the park were forced to flee as gun­fire erupt­ed. Her­nan­dez was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival at hos­pi­tal.

In re­sponse, Beck­les said her heart broke for the chil­dren af­fect­ed and prayed they re­ceive the psy­cho­log­i­cal and so­cial sup­port they need, par­tic­u­lar­ly the daugh­ter of the de­ceased.

“Sweet Trinidad and To­ba­go, we are bet­ter than this bru­tal­i­ty,” she wrote.

Through her posts, Beck­les high­light­ed the need for both per­son­al and na­tion­al re­flec­tion, urg­ing cit­i­zens to show com­pas­sion and re­ject vi­o­lence in all its forms.