Despite Valencia murders, senior cop says police firmly in control

Shane Su­perville

Of­fi­cers of the East­ern Di­vi­sion say they will in­crease their pres­ence and car­ry out fo­cused search­es fol­low­ing three mur­ders in Emon Lane, Va­len­cia, days apart.

On April 20, 49-year-old Shaun Charles was shot and killed at his home. One day lat­er, Dex­ter Fer­reira was gunned down near his home. On Sun­day night, 39-year-old Ke­shawn Guy, al­so known as Ab­dul Aleem, was shot and killed while walk­ing to­wards his home.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia Ltd on Mon­day through the TTPS Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit, head of the East­ern Di­vi­sion, Snr Supt Christo­pher Pa­ponette, said the killings were linked to crim­i­nal con­flicts.

“Pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tions and in­tel­li­gence as­sess­ments in­di­cate that these in­ci­dents are tar­get­ed and stem from iden­ti­fi­able con­flicts and crim­i­nal dy­nam­ics in­volv­ing per­sons of in­ter­est.

“There is no cur­rent in­tel­li­gence to sug­gest that mem­bers of the gen­er­al pub­lic are be­ing in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly tar­get­ed.

“The TTPS con­firms that in­ves­ti­ga­tors have de­vel­oped strong lines of en­quiry and are ac­tive­ly pur­su­ing iden­ti­fied per­sons of in­ter­est in con­nec­tion with these mat­ters.”

Pa­ponette said the di­vi­sion will car­ry out tar­get­ed raid and search op­er­a­tions, sus­tained high-vis­i­bil­i­ty pa­trols in and around Ea­mon Lane and oth­er ar­eas, and in­tel­li­gence-led ac­tion against pri­or­i­ty of­fend­ers.

He al­so said po­lice are ad­dress­ing the risk of re­tal­ia­to­ry vi­o­lence, with mea­sures be­ing in­tro­duced to pro­tect vul­ner­a­ble in­di­vid­u­als.