Members of the protective services and Desperlie Crescent, Laventille, residents are pointing fingers at each other following the killing of three men in the area on Thursday night. Residents yesterday claimed reputed gang leader Dillon “Bandy” Skeete, 30, Joel Tash, 22, and Jamaican national Sherwin Thomas were killed by well trained, masked soldiers acting under the guidance of police.
Skeete was a suspect in the murder of regiment officer Lance Corporal Kayode Thomas. Thomas, 32, was shot dead on June 29 while on his way to his home at Beverly Hills, Laventille. Sherwin Thomas was the cousin of Jamaica reggae singer Lewin “Louis Culture” Brown. Thomas and Brown were in T&T for the past two weeks wrapping up filming of a movie in Laventille, but the T&T Guardian was unable to confirm if Brown was still here.
However, the police denied any members of the protective services were involved in the killings. At a press conference at the Police Administration Building, Port-of-Spain, hours after the killings, acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams was adamant that the killers were not law enforcement officers but could not give any motive as to the killing of the three men.
Williams denied residents’ claims that the men’s killers were members of the regiment. Asked how he was certain, he said police had interviewed witnesses during their initial investigations and they revealed the killers were not law enforcement officers. However, eyewitnesses told the T&T Guardian earlier the killers identified themselves as members of the protective services and were wearing all-black clothing with a monogram on their tops resembling that of the regiment’s special forces unit.
Contacted on the allegations yesterday, the regiment’s public liaison officer, Capt Stefan Affonso, said the statements were unfortunate and not true. He said the deaths of the men were a loss and any loss of citizens’ lives was a loss to the country. Affonso denied Skeete was being pursued by the regiment in connection with Thomas’ killing and called on members of the public who may have information on criminal activity to come forward rather than take matters into their own hands and attack the police.
Shortly after Thomas’ killing, members of the regiment searched the homes of Skeete’s relatives at Laventille, Champ Fleurs, Toco and Couva, seeking him out.
T&T Guardian visit
Skeete’s brother, Duane, was also placed under scrutiny in Grenada and was held there for two days without charge and released without a proper explanation as to why he was detained. His attorney then told the T&T Guardian that Duane was being held on the request of the T&T authorities. Skeete visited the T&T Guardian’s offices on July 14 to tell his side of the story. Moments after the interview was conducted, members of the Defence Force visited the T&T Guardian’s offices looking for Skeete.
They left after being told he was not in the building but moments later the company received a call saying there was a bomb in the building. That matter was still under investigation up to yesterday. During the press conference, Williams said Skeete was one of the suspects in Thomas’ murder. This differed from information the police gave the media on Skeete soon after Thomas was killed.
Asked when Skeete became a suspect, since police had repeatedly denied he was wanted by them, while Skeete’s relatives had also made allegations that soldiers were “hunting him down,” Williams said:
“I am surprised you are looking for an answer to that question but you will not get it from me.
“At the time of his death (Skeete) he was a suspect as many other persons have been a suspect in that investigation.”
Asked if Skeete had ever sought police protection from the regiment because he was fearful they wanted him dead, Williams said he was unaware and passed the question to his Deputy Commissioner (Crime) Glen Hackett who denied any knowledge of that.
Eyewitness fears killers will return
An eyewitness to the killing of three men, among them a reputed gang leader and murder suspect, says she is fearful the killers, whom she believes are members of the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment, will return to execute her. Speaking hours after the killings yesterday, the young mother of two said she was with Dillon Skeete, 30, Joel Tash, 22, and Jamaican Sherwin Thomas when they were killed on Thursday night.
She recalled she was with nine men liming near Skeete’s office at Desperlie Crescent when two vehicles passed them. The woman said a marked police vehicle passed first, then an unmarked Nissan X-Trail passed. She said she then saw the drivers of both vehicles speak to each other before the marked police vehicle left. “‘Ay police, everybody go up on the wall,’” she said were the first words out of the mouths of the masked men when they returned and approached the group.
The woman said she asked to see identification but instead one of the men placed a gun to her chest and said “‘It have no gyal thing here, I would kill you.’” She said she was ordered to kneel and one of the killers told her he knew her face and could come back for her.
While the two were arguing, she said, the other men were beginning to kneel with their hands in the air. One the masked men then stepped away from the group to answer a call. He then returned and shot Skeete, signalling the others to “spray down” (shoot) the other men.
She ran at this point, leaving behind her friends as they were riddled with bullets. She said the killer/s shot at her but missed. The woman said she saw Thomas, an actor who came to film a movie, titled “You Ain’t No Killer”, gasping for breath as one of the killers tried to remove Skeete’s gold chain. She added: “I have two children to live for. They does always come and kill people in here and get away with it. What they does do about it. This is not the first time.
“That was execution, I must be frightened after I nearly see death. I know they would come and do me something because they telling me ‘I marking your face, you is the one who see everything’. “That is a threat, so I know if I dead today or tomorrow I know is either a police or a soldier kill me.” Although she didn’t see the shooting, she said the way the killers operated and the heavy weaponry they had suggested they were military.
“Oh no, it wasn’t bad boys. The van went in and come out and people see the van. I hear the shots. I had to ban up my knees because when I heard the shots I dropped to my knees and bawl. Up here quiet and nice,” she said. Speaking with the media at the Forensic Science Centre, St James, yesterday, Tash’s father, Noel, said his son would have celebrated his 23rd birthday next month and was an aspiring policeman.
He said his son was killed for visiting his friends. “He used to go and visit relatives in Laventille because he moved out and I always warned him about going to Laventille in the night,” Noel said. He said his child had signed up to become a special reserve police officer but became ill for one week and had to restart the process.
Skeete’s relatives, who were also at the FSC, said he was hunted by soldiers and eventually killed because he was labelled a suspect in the June 29 murder of Lance Corporal
Kayode Thomas.
They were firm in their conviction that he was murdered by those sworn to uphold justice and the law. They said he had had a premonition he would be killed soon. The men’s killing have taken the murder toll to 300 for the year, ten more than last year.