Blood continues to flow in Tobago as the sister isle recorded its 19th murder for the year with the killing of a woman who is alleged to be a gang member. At around 3 p.m.
yesterday, alleged Seven gang member Victoria Guerra, alias “Dolly Boss”, was shot multiple times in Argyle, Tobago. The Express learnt that Guerra was hiding out in the countryside in Tobago with other alleged gang members. Police said Guerra was on the street leading to the Argyle Waterfall when a car pulled up and a group of men exited and fired several shots at her and a man in her company.
Both Guerra and the man were taken to the Roxborough hospital. Guerra, who was under police guard at the hospital, died, while the man was grazed by a bullet and escaped death. The gunmen also went on to shoot an alleged Sixx gang member in Pembroke.
Police said the shooting of “Dolly Boss” may be a reprisal for the Saturday shooting of Ezra Sylvester, 41. Sylvester, who was shot multiple times in Scarborough, died at the Scarborough General Hospital at around 9.15 p.
m. on Saturday. He was said to be a member of the Sixx gang.
Police reported that Sylvester was sitting on a chair under a tent at the old First Citizens bank car park located on Carrington Street when a black Matrix stopped on the roadway. Five men, who were armed with firearms, exited the vehicle and began shooting. Also injured in that shooting and hospitalised were Anthony Lopez, 27, of Goodwood, and Andrew Archer, 29, of Pump Mill.
Police had warned Sylvester that his enemies wanted him dead. He had survived a previous attempt to kill him. Fatal shootings have been rocking Tobago and distressing residents of the usually tranquil island.
In July this year, Tobago recorded a quadruple murder. Four men—Anslem Douglas, Gregory Hamlet, Samuel Mc Cain and Jamoki Duncan— were killed after gunmen wearing camouflage uniforms stormed Douglas’ Black Rock, Tobago home and rained bullets. Attorney Martin George.
Police stupidity Chairman of the Tobago Business Chamber Martin George yesterday expressed alarm over the “murder and mayhem” taking place in Tobago. He reiterated the Chamber’s call for vehicle scanners at the ports, which he believes will play an integral part in preventing guns from getting into the island. “There are too many illegal guns in Tobago.
It’s a simple fact and we need to deal with it. There is an inflow of illegal drugs in Tobago; that also needs to stop,” George said in a WhatsApp video message yesterday. He said the Chamber was concerned and disappointed by the rising murders on the island and called for better management of the island’s police resources.
“We are still in the month of August—in the early days of August—and 18 (now 19) murders thus far. This is beyond ridiculous now,” said George. Chiding the police and their policing style, he said: “We have police officers in Tobago devoting time and resources to chasing down an obeah man to arrest him and lock him up because he allegedly tried to work obeah on transport officers from the Transport Division.
That’s the folly and stupidity that our police officers are engaged in, while murder and mayhem continue to wreak havoc on our beautiful island.” George further knocked the “stupidity” of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) in Trinidad, as he pointed to the arrest of a maxi-taxi driver in City Gate in Port of Spain on July 17. “Even in Trinidad you have the same palpable, potent, patent and pernicious stupidity by the TTPS looking to go and arrest a maxi driver for failing to assist police officers in arresting someone, when you have murderers roaming the streets freely and the police officers are not arresting them; but they could find resources to go and arrest a maxi driver in Trinidad.
And they’re devoting resources to looking for an obeah man in Tobago to arrest him. The misuse of police resources is making a mockery of the TTPS, to the extent where criminal elements have no respect for their authority,” he said. He added: “If these frivolities are what you have exercising the minds and brains of intelligentsia of the Police Service, then clearly, they are not focused on trying to stop or reduce murders and crime, and gun trafficking and drug trafficking.
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