Man charged with murder over Charlotte Street fatal shooting

A 50-year-old Port of Spain man has been charged with mur­der and firearm-re­lat­ed of­fences in con­nec­tion with the fa­tal shoot­ing of Mar­lon Ham­lyn last month along Char­lotte Street.

Dil­lon Irvin, of An­nisette Street, East Dry Riv­er, was charged with mur­der, pos­ses­sion of a firearm and pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion fol­low­ing le­gal ad­vice from Spe­cial­ist Ad­vis­er to the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, Joan Hon­ore-Paul.

Ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, the charges stem from the fa­tal shoot­ing of Ham­lyn, 51, of El­va Av­enue, Green­dale Park, Ari­ma, on June 17.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said that at about 3:23 p.m., Ham­lyn was seat­ed in the rear left pas­sen­ger seat of a ve­hi­cle parked along Char­lotte Street, Port of Spain, when he was ap­proached by a man armed with a firearm.

Po­lice al­leged that the sus­pect opened fire, shoot­ing Ham­lyn sev­er­al times be­fore flee­ing the scene on foot in a souther­ly di­rec­tion along Char­lotte Street.

Ham­lyn died from the in­juries sus­tained in the at­tack.

Fol­low­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions, Irvin was ar­rest­ed and sub­se­quent­ly charged af­ter Hon­ore-Paul ad­vised that crim­i­nal charges be laid.

Irvin is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore a Mas­ter of the High Court to an­swer the charges.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion was spear­head­ed by Woman Po­lice Con­sta­ble Sargeant.

The killing was one of sev­er­al vi­o­lent in­ci­dents record­ed in Port of Spain in re­cent weeks as po­lice con­tin­ue in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to firearm-re­lat­ed crimes across the cap­i­tal.

As is cus­tom­ary, the charges rep­re­sent al­le­ga­tions. Irvin is pre­sumed in­no­cent un­less and un­til proven guilty be­fore the court.

Po­lice have not dis­closed a mo­tive for the shoot­ing, and en­quiries in­to the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Ham­lyn's death re­main on­go­ing. Of­fi­cers are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions as they seek to de­ter­mine the events that led to the fa­tal at­tack on Char­lotte Street.