TTPS corrects previous statement; woman, son also shot in Belmont

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice has cor­rect­ed a pre­vi­ous state­ment say­ing that a woman and her son had been con­veyed to hos­pi­tal for med­ical treat­ment af­ter sus­tain­ing gun­shot in­juries in the fa­tal triple mur­der in Bel­mont this morn­ing. Trag­i­cal­ly, the child, Aki­ni Kafi, lat­er suc­cumbed to his in­juries while re­ceiv­ing treat­ment. His fa­ther, Ak­il Kafi, and An­tho­ny Wil­son were al­so killed. The woman re­mains un­der med­ical care.

The in­ci­dent oc­curred fol­low­ing a shoot­ing in the Bel­mont Po­lice Dis­trict on Thurs­day morn­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, of­fi­cers of the Port of Spain Task Force re­spond­ed to a wire­less trans­mis­sion at about 8.35 am re­port­ing loud ex­plo­sions in the vicin­i­ty of Ser­raneau Road, Bel­mont.

Po­lice said of­fi­cers went to the area and, while mak­ing en­quiries, were di­rect­ed by res­i­dents to con­tin­ue along St Fran­cois Val­ley Road.

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

Po­lice said the iden­ti­ties of the de­ceased men had not yet been con­firmed up to Thurs­day af­ter­noon.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the woman and child were tak­en to hos­pi­tal af­ter the shoot­ing. The child lat­er died while re­ceiv­ing treat­ment. The woman re­mained ward­ed un­der med­ical care.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Suzette Mar­tin vis­it­ed the scene along with oth­er of­fi­cers.

In a state­ment is­sued by the TTPS, Mar­tin 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 in­creased 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 stat­ed.

She al­so ap­pealed to mem­bers of the pub­lic to al­low in­ves­ti­ga­tors the time to con­duct en­quiries as of­fi­cers con­tin­ue ef­forts to iden­ti­fy and ar­rest those re­spon­si­ble.

Po­lice of­fi­cers re­mained at the scene up to Thurs­day af­ter­noon as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ued.

The TTPS ap­pealed to any­one with in­for­ma­tion that could as­sist in­ves­ti­ga­tors to con­tact the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion One, Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion or Crime Stop­pers at 800-TIPS.