(Trinidad Express) Police suspect that Monday evening’s murder of a funeral home employee in Laventille is a reprisal for last week’s killing of another man at the same place.
Police said around 6.25 p.m. Clyde Johnson, 34, of Alexis Street, Morvant, was standing outside Simpson’s Funeral Agency and Chapel at Eastern Main Road, Laventille, with two other people when a silver Toyota Yaris car stopped near them.
Two gunmen got out and opened fire on Johnson, striking him several times about the body.
He fell to the ground as the men got back into the car, which sped off.
Last Thursday, another man, Emmanuel Parks, 26, also from Morvant, was gunned down near a hardware store adjacent to the funeral home.
Police said around 12.15 p.m. Parks and a woman, said to be his girlfriend, were in his Toyota Corolla car outside the hardware store.
As Parks was standing outside the car, a silver Nissan Tiida vehicle stopped near him, a man got out and fired several shots at close range using an assault rifle.
Parks was shot in the head and body and died on the spot.
Police later told the Express that they knew Parks as an extortionist who had been demanding money from contractors in the Laventille area amid the threat that if they did not pay, their jobsite would be robbed.
Police told the Express yesterday that Johnson’s murder may have been connected to Parks’ killing.
The Express also spoke to his employer, David Simpson.
“Whatever the reason is, yes, it could be a reprisal or it could be a whole different issue, but another young contributing citizen of society is now deceased. His family, co-workers and friends are all in mourning and at the end of the day this was violence caused by easy access to guns and this is what we have to live with as a society,” he said.
Asked how he felt about another murder occurring outside his business place in under a week he said: “Being from Laventille and being in the funeral industry we have become immune. At one time it used to be a surprise but now we just want to know who it is.
“Gunshots don’t scare you anymore, the police cordoning off an area (crime scene) no longer affects you because you learned how to manoeuvre within that situation. It is not natural that it should be natural to us but that’s what it is,” he said.
Simpson said: “While I wouldn’t want to hear that another person was hurt in this way, it could happen in the next two minutes so who is going to say, enough is enough.
“We are losing productive citizens. We are robbing the nation of productive citizens and no where is safe or sacred.”
