Wave of murders hits Trinidad & Tobago in first days of 2024
At least seven people were killed in Trinidad & Tobago within the first three days of 2024, including three women and a man who refused to join a gang.
Seven killed in Trinidad & Tobago within three days of New Year
At least seven people were killed in Trinidad and Tobago in the first three days of 2024, according to globalvoices.org, which documented a wave of violence spanning gang-related shootings, a domestic femicide and a drive-by attack at a busy market.
The country's first murder of the year occurred on New Year's Day — 41-year-old Adundi Telemaque, whom relatives say was targeted after he refused to join a gang. A separate fatal shooting was also reported on the island of Tobago.
By January 2, three women had been killed. Nineteen-year-old Teneisha Jackie died in a drive-by shooting in the early hours of that morning in a busy part of Port of Spain. Later, 43-year-old Calida Schamber and her 66-year-old mother, Carmelita DeLeon, were shot dead — allegedly by Schamber's estranged partner, an active soldier, who had previously threatened to kill her. Police reports and a restraining order had been filed against him. The couple's toddler son was in the house at the time.
A double murder at Tunapuna Market followed on January 3. Mikael Hernandez and Aaron Leander were shot dead after several men exited a vehicle and opened fire near where the two were gathered. Three others were wounded, one of them reportedly in critical condition. Police described the attack as drug-related. On the same day, a former prisoner who was said to be attempting to rebuild his life was also murdered; his sister cited poor parenting as a contributing factor to the broader rise in crime.
A five percent drop that brought little comfort
The Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) recorded 576 homicides in 2023, down from 605 in 2022 — a five percent decline. Despite that, public anxiety over personal safety and domestic violence remains high.
Prime Minister Keith Rowley described the crime situation as "intractable" in October 2023. "Notwithstanding the persistent efforts of the various state machinery, the selection of violence as a way of life, the love affair and glamorization of firearms and the wanton disregard for human life in Trinidad and Tobago has now gone beyond concerning to the ridiculous," he said.
Rowley pledged that the state would "redouble all efforts to curtail these violent outbursts, hunt down and disarm the perpetrators and [make] operational adjustments so that the state security services can act with dispatch." An editorial in the Express newspaper pushed back, arguing that "the Government and all the protective services will never reduce crime unless they tackle the root causes."
In messages issued on Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, Rowley suggested that citizens needed to better embrace the national watchword of tolerance, and argued that the boldness of criminals stemmed from a belief that they faced little consequence from the judicial system. He urged the public to report illegal activity to police — a call that drew criticism given how few residents trust law enforcement, particularly in poorer and marginalised communities where social ties make informing dangerous.
Opposition fires back at Rowley
Opposition Member of Parliament Dinesh Rambally rejected the prime minister's framing. "By stating that the best gift a shooter can get is the silence of who he is, Rowley is shamelessly now blaming the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago for failing to do the work of his own National Security Council," Rambally said. He described the mention of "Tolerance" in Rowley's Christmas message as "particularly out of touch when our citizens are being subjected to mindless violence and frequent murders."
Before the year turned, senior police superintendent Richard Smith of the TTPS' North Central Division called on the public not to fire weapons at midnight, noting that the practice had become something of a recurring trend. The appeal was widely circulated on WhatsApp, with many commenters suggesting it illustrated just how limited police authority over the situation had become.
In 2023, Trinidad and Tobago ranked 12th among the world's most dangerous countries by murder rate per 100,000 inhabitants. Much of the violence is attributed to the drug trade and its associated effects, including gang warfare, the spread of illegal weapons, kidnappings and femicide — patterns that show no sign of abating as the new year begins.
Source: Google News TT — Crime