Trinidad woman gunned down in front of son

(Trinidad Guardian) A 12-year-old boy screamed in agony as he hugged and ca­ressed his moth­er’s body af­ter gun­men shot her dead in San­ta Cruz on Tuesday.

Can­dy Ann Mc In­tyre, 36, whose tes­ti­mo­ny led to the con­vic­tion of three men for mur­der, had mo­ments be­fore at­tend­ed her son’s grad­u­a­tion at a near­by event’s cen­tre and was wait­ing for her hus­band to pick her up.

Po­lice said around 2.45 pm, Mc In­tyre, of Quar­ry Road, San Juan was stand­ing at the side of San­ta Bar­bara Boule­vard with her son when a white wag­on which had been parked wait­ing drove clos­er.

Oc­cu­pants of the car, armed with high-pow­ered ri­fles, opened fire killing the moth­er of four in­stant­ly.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the woman was shot mul­ti­ple times to the head and up­per body and fell face first. Her son was not in­jured in the at­tack.

A heart-wrench­ing video record­ed mo­ments af­ter the in­ci­dent showed the boy ca­ress­ing his moth­er’s body as he cried un­con­trol­lably. His pierc­ing screams echoed through­out the area.

An eye­wit­ness told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that they no­ticed the wag­on parked on a cor­ner for some time be­fore the mur­der.

“It hap­pened quick…we hear re­al shots. We re­al­ly no­tice the car parked up but didn’t think any­thing of it. Strange yes, but noth­ing much. It re­al shock­ing and sad. Look how the boy bawl­ing for his moth­er,” the eye­wit­ness said.

Mc In­tyre’s hus­band, Wen­dell said his son called him and told him that “some­body now kill mam­my.”

“I was in town and had the chance to reach here be­fore the am­bu­lance. I don’t even have a siren on my car and reach be­fore most of these po­lice and the am­bu­lance. Man, they telling me they can’t move her. But they want to feel for a pulse. Well pick her up and car­ry she in hos­pi­tal, nah boy,” an emo­tion­al Wen­dell said as he re­lat­ed the first few min­utes af­ter he ar­rived on the scene.

He said he had spo­ken to his wife min­utes be­fore she was killed.

“She called me, you know. She say they done and thing. So every­thing was nor­mal. Then my son called back to say, ‘Dad­dy, dad­dy they shoot mam­my.’

The fa­ther said he was thank­ful his son was un­hurt.

He said he was told that “big ma­chine guns” were used in the at­tack. Re­gard­ing the mur­der case she was a wit­ness in, her hus­band would on­ly say it was “an old case” about 15 years ago. Guardian Me­dia was told that Mc In­tyre’s ev­i­dence lead to the con­vic­tion of three men but the Privy Coun­cil sub­se­quent­ly or­dered that two of them face a re­tri­al. In­ves­ti­gat­ing po­lice of­fi­cers did not dis­close any fur­ther de­tails of the mur­der case.

Coun­sel­lors at­tached to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s Vic­tim Sup­port Unit were called in to pro­vide pro­fes­sion­al sup­port and coun­selling for the vic­tim’s son.

This is the third gun at­tack in­volv­ing chil­dren in the past week.

On Mon­day, a ten-year-old girl was shot and wound­ed while seat­ed in a rel­a­tive’s car on the busy Port-of-Spain streets as a gun­man made an al­leged at­tempt on her fa­ther’s life while parked along Dun­can Street. She re­mained in sta­ble con­di­tion at the hos­pi­tal last night.

That shoot­ing oc­curred just six days af­ter three pupils were shot at dur­ing a dri­ve-by shoot­ing on Bel­mont Cir­cu­lar Road.

Last week Wednes­day two of the in­ju­red school girls, aged six and 15, were al­so said to be the chil­dren of a known gang leader, es­caped se­ri­ous in­jury but the dri­ver of the ve­hi­cle they were in was shot as well as an 18-year-old girl.

That shoot­ing took place out­side the Prov­i­dence Girls’ Catholic School at about 2.40 pm, less than 200 me­tres from the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion.

The tar­get in that in­ci­dent was iden­ti­fied as a 38-year-old man of Mara­cas.

He was shot as he drove a white Hilux ve­hi­cle but man­aged to run from the ve­hi­cle and es­cape.

The gun­men opened fire on the ve­hi­cle on a busy street as the school day end­ed.

Their bul­lets struck oth­er parked ve­hi­cles along the road­way as sev­er­al school chil­dren and oth­er pedes­tri­ans scam­pered for cov­er.

On May 5, a 22-year-old State wit­ness in a Mor­vant dou­ble mur­der was shot and killed as she at­tend­ed a friend’s birth­day par­ty in Barataria. In that in­ci­dent, po­lice said Veron­i­ca Fran­co was killed at Twelfth Street, Barataria at around 8 pm.

Three days af­ter that mur­der, on May 8—13 peo­ple from a well-known gang in the North­ern Di­vi­sion, who were found lurk­ing around the Tu­na­puna Mag­is­trates’ Court were ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with a plot to mur­der a State wit­ness as he was about to leave the court.

The State wit­ness, 38, gave ev­i­dence in an at­tempt­ed mur­der which oc­curred in 2015 in St Joseph where the vic­tim was shot af­ter a fu­ner­al. The sus­pects were sub­se­quent­ly re­leased.

The mur­der toll now stands at 243 for the year so far.

An au­top­sy is ex­pect­ed to be done on Mc In­tyre’s body at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre on Fri­day.