RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

In what res­i­dents de­scribed as a mur­der­ous crime spree, a gang of crim­i­nals went on a ram­page in Tabaquite, start­ing their on­slaught with mur­der be­fore ex­e­cut­ing three rob­beries and one home in­va­sion on Sat­ur­day night.

Matthew Chan­cel­lor, 21, a work­er with Sub­way, had just re­turned home and was go­ing to his grand­moth­er’s house to col­lect his bag when the gang of crim­i­nals drove in­to the vil­lage and start­ed rob­bing every­one they met.

A wit­ness said they were stand­ing on the pave­ment at Cito Road when a fight broke out a lit­tle way off out­side a bar.

Sens­ing there was about to be trou­ble, the man said he told Chan­cel­lor and his cousins they should start go­ing back up the road.

“Then I see a car and a man braced us with guns. They hit me one on my head, and I start­ed to run as I heard shots pelt­ing. Four shots rang out. Then Matthew’s broth­er went back to see what took place and found him dead,” he said.

Res­i­dents be­lieve af­ter Chan­cel­lor was shot, he be­gan run­ning through a prop­er­ty be­long­ing to Julie Gar­cia.

Gar­cia said she was sleep­ing when she heard four shots.

“My son say, ‘Come and see a man ly­ing in the back by the fig tree,’ and when we went there, we saw him,” Gar­cia said.

Hav­ing lost her own grand­son sev­er­al years ago, Gar­cia said it hurt to see young Chan­cel­lor ly­ing dead.

“This is a child that don’t in­ter­fere with no­body. He works for his dol­lar at Sub­way in Ch­agua­nas, and he is a re­al re­spectable lit­tle young man,” Gar­cia said.

Af­ter shoot­ing and killing Chan­cel­lor, the ban­dits went to the home of Na­tal­ie Gur­rah, jumped over her front gate, and kicked down a door be­fore steal­ing a quan­ti­ty of jew­ellery.

Then the thieves went to the Tabaquite band­stand, where they robbed an­oth­er woman named Rachel of her white Nis­san Ti­i­da.

Coun­cil­lor for Caratal/Tor­tu­ga, Sharen Badal-Ahyew, said for one hour, the thieves un­leashed their ter­ror in the vil­lage, al­leg­ing this was fa­cil­i­tat­ed be­cause the po­lice took more than an hour to re­spond to the mur­der.

The poor po­lice re­sponse prompt­ed protests in the com­mu­ni­ty yes­ter­day, as dozens of peo­ple gath­ered at a blood­ied pool at Cito Trace, where ev­i­dence of the bru­tal killing of Chan­cel­lor was still dis­played on the road­way.

The nau­se­at­ing smell of fresh blood per­me­at­ed as the vil­lagers chant­ed, “We want jus­tice!”

Badal-Ahyew said since 2020, res­i­dents had called on the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice not to close down the Bras­so Po­lice Sta­tion be­cause of the up­surge in crime. The calls were ig­nored and the sta­tion was shut­tered for a re­pur­pos­ing ex­er­cise and its of­fi­cers trans­ferred to the next clos­est sta­tion at Gran Cou­va. How­ev­er, she said, the Gran Cou­va Po­lice Sta­tion was more than an hour away, and res­i­dents were left with­out a prop­er po­lice pres­ence.

“Last night, there were three rob­beries, a home in­va­sion, a car­jack­ing, and a mur­der. Three in­ci­dents in one night are too much. They mur­dered our jan­i­tor at Tabaquite Health Cen­tre re­cent­ly. Now, Matthew is mur­dered right on this spot. We want jus­tice,” Badal-Ahyew shout­ed.

She added, “He was walk­ing to his home, and they shot that child in his back. We are call­ing for that sta­tion to be opened be­cause crime is out of hand.”

For­mer Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Hen­ry Awong al­so said Chan­cel­lor came from a de­cent, hard­work­ing fam­i­ly.

“I knew him as a ba­by. Matthew had his whole life ahead of him,” Awong said.

At the fam­i­ly’s home, his fa­ther, Maxwell Chan­cel­lor, al­so begged for jus­tice. He said Chan­cel­lor was sup­posed to be bap­tised yes­ter­day and was a de­cent and hard­work­ing son. He al­so lament­ed the length of time it took for the po­lice to re­spond.

“My son bled out. His body had time to get stiff, and then the po­lice come. These men had time to evac­u­ate and do more rob­beries,” the se­nior Maxwell said.

He added, “They killed my son. I can­not live like this. I am a gov­ern­ment work­er, a law-abid­ing cit­i­zen. Why is it I have to live like this? Why is it my chil­dren can­not be safe? My son was 21 and was go­ing to be bap­tised to­day (yes­ter­day).”

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Se­nior Supt of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, Ian Cathy, said the re­open­ing of the sta­tion was im­mi­nent, and they had no new leads as yet on the mur­der.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land and ACP South/Cen­tral Wayne Mys­tar, but no re­spons­es were forth­com­ing up to news time.

MP wants po­lice post re­turned

Mean­while, Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne is call­ing for ur­gent re­turn of the Bras­so po­lice post to tack­le the crime surge in the com­mu­ni­ties.

In a state­ment, Haynes-Al­leyne said Chan­cel­lor’s death had rocked the com­mu­ni­ties.

“I have seen count­less pic­tures and videos of Matthew at church, spend­ing time with his fam­i­ly and friends. Not on­ly was he a light among us, he was full of love. We are all mourn­ing his sud­den pass­ing and we de­mand jus­tice for Matthew,” she said.

She said the at­tack last­ed for an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od across mul­ti­ple com­mu­ni­ties, with no po­lice pres­ence.

“In 2020, the TTPS host­ed a com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing, dur­ing which they in­formed com­mu­ni­ties of the plan to amal­ga­mate the Bras­so and Gran Cou­va Po­lice Sta­tions. At the time, res­i­dents ve­he­ment­ly op­posed this move. This mat­ter was al­so raised dur­ing sub­se­quent town halls host­ed by the TTPS to ad­dress crime through­out the con­stituen­cy,” she said.

“The safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns raised five years ago have once again reared their ug­ly heads. De­spite the promise of in­creased pa­trols, po­lice are sim­ply un­able to re­spond quick­ly enough due to the large ge­o­graph­ic area the avail­able pa­trols must cov­er. More­over, the ter­ri­ble road con­di­tions slow re­sponse times even fur­ther. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, mem­bers of the crim­i­nal el­e­ment are cap­i­tal­is­ing on this gap.”

She said while the po­lice fo­cus on ap­pre­hend­ing crim­i­nals and re­mov­ing il­le­gal guns, there must al­so be an em­pha­sis on pub­lic safe­ty.

“We know that the fo­cus of law en­force­ment agen­cies is of­ten on ap­pre­hend­ing crim­i­nals and re­mov­ing il­le­gal guns from our streets. How­ev­er, we al­so need to em­pha­sise main­tain­ing safe spaces and pri­ori­tis­ing the safe­ty of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens. In this case, the ev­i­dence be­fore us is clear. The Bras­so Po­lice Post must be ful­ly op­er­a­tionalised now.”

Haynes Al­leyne added, “For too long, crim­i­nals have tor­ment­ed cit­i­zens across T&T, fac­ing no con­se­quences for their ac­tions. Even in our rur­al ar­eas, the feel­ing of pub­lic safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty at home has been shat­tered.”

She not­ed that in her con­tri­bu­tion to the SoE ex­ten­sion de­bate, she cau­tioned Gov­ern­ment that they will be judged by the ef­fi­ca­cy of the SoE.

“The fact that qui­et neigh­bour­hoods like Tabaquite are be­ing ter­rorised at the height of this dras­tic na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mea­sure does not at all in­stil any con­fi­dence in the pub­lic,” she said.

She called on the Gov­ern­ment to se­ri­ous­ly re­view the da­ta and im­ple­ment a ro­bust mul­ti-pronged an­ti-crime and crime pre­ven­tion strat­e­gy.