(Trinidad Guardian) A 25-year-old Arouca man died on Tuesday after being chased and knocked down by a man driving a car, moments after he was forced to flee his girlfriend’s home following an argument with her former boyfriend.
According to police reports, around 10 am officers from the Tunapuna Police Station were contacted and told that three men were being chased by a group of men, including one in a car and one on a motorbike, along St John’s Road, St Augustine. When they arrived they found Akeem Reid in a ditch bleeding. He was taken to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, where he later died.
Despite the circumstances surrounding Reid’s death, police are yet to classify it as a murder as they are awaiting instructions from the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
In a telephone interview with the T&T Guardian yesterday, one of Reid’s friends, who was with him before he was attacked, said he had earlier questioned Reid’s girlfriend, identified only as Melissa, about the stability of her ex-boyfriend, who lived in the area. The man, who did not want to be named, said after being assured by her that the ex-boyfriend was of no threat, he appeared at her home in a hostile manner.
“Somebody come and see we there and went back and tell him and he come and start to quarrel and fight. He fight with my next friend and he (Melissa’s ex-boyfriend) called his friends. They came so we had to run and leave the car we come in,” Reid’s friend said.
“When we was running one of the man friends jump in we car and bounce down Akeem and crash the car down a precipice. While we was running I was talking to the police and telling them what happening. I went by a neighbour, who tell me how to get to the river to get to the main road and me and my next friend run straight to the police station.”
Melissa, a mother of two, confirmed the friend’s claim, adding that her ex-boyfriend’s behaviour was uncalled for since they had broken up for over four years. She said before she could have quelled the situation it escalated into a fight, in which she got involved and punched her ex-lover in the face.
Melissa said Reid and his two friends arrived at her home around 6.30 am on Tuesday from a party and she allowed them to sleep over, as she knew the men had been drinking during the event and wanted to give them time to “ketch themselves.” During the course of the morning, she sent her four-year-old daughter to her grandmother’s home because she found her own home was “crowded with men.” After doing so, she said she was called by her former boyfriend, who later showed up at her home.
Melissa said the man had seen Reid at her home before, so she found his argument this time to be baseless. She said she eventually got Reid and his friends to leave, but while doing so one of Reid’s friends got into a scuffle with her ex-lover and she stepped in and punched him in the face. This angered him and he called for his friends, she said. When the man’s friends arrived and Reid and his friends attempted to flee, one of her ex-lover’s friends jumped into a Toyota motorcar owned by Reid’s friend and later run over him.
“Right now I just want justice, because I real love Akeem and every time I see my daughter I will see his (her ex-boyfriend) face and I love my daughter too, so this is very hard for me right now. I just blaming myself. I studying I should not have let them sleep, but they was drinking and was tired” Melissa sobbed, adding she could no longer face the father of her child.
She added: “I have a lot of hate inside because Akeem did not deserve this no way no time. When I saw him in the ditch I was just telling him ‘Baby I want you to fight you know I love you and I really didn’t mean for all of this to happen’. I had no signs this was going to happen. Akeem accustomed coming by me and sleeping and it never had any kind of tension before.”
She added, with a noticeable joyous pep in her voice, that Reid was the clown in her group of friends and a “real dancer boy” who made her laugh with ease. She said they met at the Tunapuna Regional Corporation and Akeem was a very hard worker.
Reid’s killing comes weeks after teenager David Sancaro, 17, was allegedly run over by the driver of a pick-up along Southern Main Road, Otaheite, on July 16, after attempting to part a fight between two lovers. Anthony Sinanan, 37, a father of two, is currently in custody charged with murdering Sancaro and is to re-appear in court on August 21.
