Trinidad: Cops believe dad killed for son’s deeds

(Trinidad Guardian) Homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve pop­u­lar me­chan­ic Win­ston Luke’s mur­der was a con­se­quence of crimes com­mit­ted by one of his sons.

Luke, 55, died at his New­bold Street, Mon Re­pos home on Tues­day evening af­ter gun­men sprayed bul­lets at him and his son, 27-year-old Kevon Luke.

Re­ports stat­ed that around 5.55 pm, the fa­ther and son were sit­ting in their garage in front of their home af­ter work­ing on a ve­hi­cle. Two men walked up to them and be­gan shoot­ing, strik­ing Luke sev­er­al times in his up­per body. Kevon was shot three times in the leg.

The gun­men then ran off.

The in­ci­dent hap­pened about 100 me­tres away from the Mon Re­pos Po­lice Sta­tion, but when of­fi­cers re­spond­ed the gun­men had al­ready dis­ap­peared. Kevon was tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he re­mains ward­ed.

Teams of in­ves­ti­ga­tors led by In­sp Steve Per­sad and In­sp Dar­ryl Cor­rie re­spond­ed but there were no eye­wit­ness­es who came for­ward.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said one of Luke’s three sons was al­leged­ly in­volved in drugs and had re­cent­ly shot at some­one. They be­lieve the shoot­ing was in re­tal­i­a­tion to Luke’s son’s deeds but said his fa­ther paid the paid.

But an­oth­er of Luke’s sons said his fa­ther was in­no­cent and did not de­serve such a hor­rid death. He said Luke was hard work­ing and pas­sion­ate about au­to me­chan­ics. He even taught his three sons his trade.

Neigh­bours said it was un­like­ly that Luke was the tar­get, as he was well liked and re­spect­ed in the com­mu­ni­ty.

They said he had been op­er­at­ing the garage at his home since 1986 and there had nev­er been any prob­lems. How­ev­er, they said the area was usu­al­ly peace­ful and they had no fears walk­ing the roads at night un­til Tues­day.

“This area is qui­et. We don’t have any set of nice look­ing hous­es, but those kinds of things usu­al­ly hap­pen clos­er to the po­lice sta­tion. It might be hard to be­lieve, but that is how it is,” a neigh­bour said.

“Luke al­ways had on a friend­ly face and if he was alive to­day he would have been here talk­ing with us. Peo­ple around here would on­ly fall out, cuss and go back in­side.”

San Fer­nan­do East MP Ran­dall Mitchell, in a Face­book post, said he was shak­en by Luke’s bru­tal mur­der. Mitchell said Luke was a self-made man who was a con­stant ad­vo­cate for the im­prove­ment of his Mon Re­pos com­mu­ni­ty.

“Every day we are bom­bard­ed by news of the crim­i­nal el­e­ment in ac­tion but I will nev­er grow numb to it. Not when a man like Mr Win­ston Luke is in­no­cent­ly ply­ing his trade, on­ly to be vi­cious­ly at­tacked at his home. I con­tin­ue to work with the South­ern Di­vi­sion of the TTPS to en­sure that the con­stituents are af­ford­ed the best ser­vice. Our Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice has tak­en a more hands-on ap­proach to the fight against crime,” Mitchell said.

“How­ev­er, we must take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for our com­mu­ni­ties. We need to take a deep­er look at the lessons and mes­sages we are pre­sent­ing to our chil­dren, pay­ing at­ten­tion to the com­pa­ny they keep and be aware of the con­se­quences of our own dai­ly ac­tiv­i­ties. We all have our part to play in our fight against crime.”