Trinidad: Father shot dead by relative at Arima home

A grief stricken Dirk Stoute reacts following the shooting death of his brother Allan Stoute yesterday.
A grief stricken Dirk Stoute reacts following the shooting death of his brother Allan Stoute yesterday.

(Trinidad Guardian) A 38-year-old man was fatally shot by a close male relative at his home in Mt Pleasant in Arima yesterday morning during an argument.

According to a police report, the argument between the victim, Allan Stoute and the relative quickly escalated to an altercation during which Stoute allegedly grabbed a cutlass and attempted to attack the man.

Allan Stoute

A police report stated the relative, who had a licensed gun, shot Stoute once.

Stoute was rushed to the Arima hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival.

Arima police detained the relative and the firearm, ammunition and the Firearm Users’ Licence.

Stoute’s widow told Guardian Media she had five children to care for.

She said Stoute was a dedicated and supportive father.

“I woke up and told Allan to put the dasheen and cassava for me to sell later and with that I sleep away and I wake up with two of them quarrelling and I grabbed my towel and went outside and told Allan, ‘Boy forget that nah, we always wrong in this house.’ With that he went in his van and he said he was going in the station to report that he was threatened to be shot,” she said.

Jacqueline Stoute mother of murdered former WASA employee Allan Stoute.

She continued: “I keep telling my husband go to work and I see him walking coming back with the cutlass in his hand it was still in the sack and with that I just hear two gunshots and he said ‘you shoot meh.’ My three daughters were standing on the couch and saw that then he pointed the gun at me and say ‘you want me hit you one too’ and with that I walk away and my husband grab my hand and fall down right there and I knew he was dead there and then,” she added as she cried uncontrollably.

She added that now as a single mother and with no support, she does not know what she is going to do and how she is going to take care of her children.

Stoute was a supervisor at the Water and Sewerage Authority.

Homicide investigators are currently involved in the investigations.