标签： Trinidad and Tobago

After weeks of raging, uncontrolled bushfires that choked skies and disrupted travel across large swathes of Trinidad and Tobago, long-awaited rainfall arrived to dampen the blazes – but it brought a new, deadly hazard in its wake: slick, dangerous road conditions that have sparked a surge in collisions, including the fatal crash that claimed the life of 46-year-old Zeena Joseph of Couva.

The tragedy unfolded just after 2 p.m. Saturday along Rivulet Road, near the Camden traffic lights. Eyewitness accounts confirm Joseph, driving a westbound Nissan Primera, drifted into the opposite lane directly into the path of an eastbound white Toyota Hilux headed for the nearby highway. The force of the head-on collision left Joseph trapped; by the time first responders pulled her from the wreckage, she could not be saved and succumbed to her injuries on the roadside shoulder.

Noel Lutchman, the 56-year-old Hilux driver from Maraval, was rushed to San Fernando General Hospital for emergency care. His three passengers – Richard Lutchman, Andy Mitchell and Roger Gills – also sustained non-fatal injuries in the crash. They were first stabilized at the Couva District Health Facility before being transferred to the larger San Fernando hospital for ongoing treatment.

This fatal collision was far from an isolated incident. In the days before the rain, thick smoke from spreading bushfires had already caused multiple chain-reaction crashes on the Sir Solomon Hochoy Highway, where drivers reported near-zero visibility that left motorists unable to react to stopped traffic ahead. When the rain finally moved in to extinguish the blazes, it transformed road conditions overnight, leaving drivers unprepared for the new risks: greasy pavement, reduced visibility from ongoing precipitation, and unpredictable traction that makes sudden stops or evasive maneuvers far more dangerous.

Police Road Safety Officer Brent Batson told local outlet *Trinidad Express* in an interview Monday that the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) has recorded a clear uptick in road traffic accidents (RTAs) coinciding with the onset of April’s seasonal rains. Batson explained that even light rainfall creates uniquely dangerous conditions by lifting accumulated motor oil from asphalt, creating a slippery film that drastically reduces tire traction. The only effective countermeasures, he noted, are intentional driver behavior changes: reduced travel speeds, increased following distance between vehicles, and routine pre-trip safety checks.

Batson issued a series of clear safety recommendations for motorists navigating rainy conditions. He urged drivers to confirm their tires, brakes, and windscreen wipers are in full working order before heading out, and to exercise extra caution at intersections and on curved stretches of road. He added, “Drivers are reminded that it is crucial that they reduce vehicle speed when negotiating corners and approaching intersections, and if visibility is poor, turn on the vehicle headlights to ensure other road users are aware of your presence on the road. Please ensure seatbelts are worn by vehicle occupants and keep alert by staying off your phone when driving.”

The TTPS echoed this warning in a separate public advisory, reiterating calls for increased vigilance from all road users amid the shift in weather. The recent string of traffic fatalities dates back to the previous Sunday, when two men lost their lives in separate crashes along the Uriah Butler Highway. First, Lopinot resident Michael King died when an out-of-control vehicle crossed the median and collided head-on with the car he was sharing with his wife, Severina Francois, who survived. Just hours later, Randy Siew, a librarian at the University of the West Indies, was also killed in a separate collision on the same corridor.

In the week between that double fatality and Joseph’s death, at least eight additional crashes have been recorded across the country: Saturday’s fatal incident, two separate collisions involving police service vehicles, and five more crashes over the holiday long weekend. Between Saturday morning and Sunday midday, crash reports were filed across high-traffic corridors spanning the nation, including the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway, Uriah Butler Highway, Tasker Road in Princes Town, multiple stretches of the Sir Solomon Hochoy Highway near Gasparillo and El Dorado, Chaguaramas, and the route near Queen’s Park Savannah. By Monday afternoon, local media received reports of a second crash along the same Rivulet Road where Joseph was killed, where a vehicle veered off the pavement into nearby vegetation. As of press time, full details on injuries and outcomes for that latest crash have not yet been confirmed.

A wave of persistent brutal violence has shaken Trinidad and Tobago, with at least 30 people killed in targeted attacks, shootings and fatal assaults across the nation in the five weeks since the government imposed a new state of emergency (SoE) to curb rising crime, Deputy Police Commissioner Suzette Martin confirmed last Friday. The chilling death toll averages out to roughly one killing per day since the SoE took effect on March 3, defying official pledges to restore public safety.

Among the victims are people from all walks of life, including high-profile figures, children, working professionals and even an elite athlete. One of the most high-profile killings took place on March 13, when controversial real estate developer Danny Guerra was ambushed and gunned down by two masked gunmen in a white car as he returned to his vehicle outside his Sangre Grande business premises. Just one week later, on March 17, 28-year-old female cricketer Rashme Deoajit was found stabbed to death with her throat slit in her Cedros home; a man known to the family has since been charged in connection with her murder.

The violence has also claimed the lives of some of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens. On March 31, an 11-month-old toddler, Jayden Sutton, was shot and killed alongside his 25-year-old father Joseph Sutton as the pair slept in their St James home. Police confirmed the father had been a witness to a separate shooting earlier that month and was cooperating with investigators, suggesting the killing was a targeted retaliatory attack. On March 23, three young men – 17-year-old Jordan Cudjoe Burke, 22-year-old Ishmael Matthews, and 21-year-old Roberto Samuel Carlos – were gunned down in a hail of bullets inside a ground-floor bedroom at Burke’s family property in Penal. Burke was the son of deceased local businessman and community activist Cedric Burke. That same day, the beaten body of 20-year-old mentally ill David Ramlakhan was found abandoned in bushes 200 feet from his New Grant home, where he had been left to die.

Other victims include serving soldiers, business owners, and everyday residents going about their daily routines. On March 14, 30-year-old soldier Jaelani Garcia Williams was ambushed and shot dead while approaching his SUV outside a Chaguanas mini-mart; investigators recovered a loaded pistol from Williams’ possession along with multiple spent shell casings from the shooter’s weapons. Four people were killed across separate incidents on March 15 alone, including three men in different shootings across Laventille, and an unidentified man whose decomposing body was found floating in a Sangre Grande pond. Multiple other killings between March and early April have left victims unidentified, as law enforcement struggles to keep pace with the surge in violence.

The ongoing bloodshed directly contradicts assurances delivered by senior government officials when the new SoE was announced. At the time of the declaration, Attorney General John Jeremie stated the government was determined to “never allow this country to deteriorate into the taste of chaos and bloodshed which we met in May 2025 when we took office.” To date, the state of emergency has failed to break the pattern of daily violence that has gripped the nation, leaving communities reeling from a steady stream of deadly attacks.

A horrific double shooting that claimed the lives of a 25-year-old man and his 11-month-old son as they slept in their Dundonald Hill, St James home has sent shockwaves across Trinidad and Tobago, leaving a tight-knit community paralyzed by grief and fear, and reigniting fierce questions about the effectiveness of the country’s ongoing state of emergency (SoE) to curb spiraling violent crime.

On Tuesday, Joseph Sutton and his infant son Jayden Sutton were gunned down in their bed in what residents describe as a new low for the region’s long-running gang violence crisis. When reporters from the *Sunday Express* visited the community two days later to speak with residents and family members, grief and fear hung heavy over the quiet, mostly empty residential street.

Magnus Sutton, father of Joseph and grandfather of Jayden, shared the crippling pain that has driven his family from the home they once shared. “We couldn’t bear to be in the home,” he explained. “Every morning, Jayden would be up, playing and crawling about. Now he’s gone. My son would have been up early, tending to his common-law wife and child before running out to the mini-mart he operates down the road. Now he can’t do any of that. All the joy is gone. So that house is not a place we want to be right now.”

Sutton added that while the wider nation has already shifted its attention to other events and political headlines, his family remains trapped in acute mourning, with no clear path forward. “I know there have been other murders since. I know politics is taking up the headlines, but we are still suffering. We are still taking it very hard. We honestly don’t know what to do or what comes next,” he said. As of last Thursday, the family was still finalizing double funeral arrangements, with a goal of setting a service date by the end of the week.

Most residents declined to speak on the record, hiding behind locked doors out of fear of retaliation from local gangs. But those who agreed to share their views expressed overwhelming horror at the killing of an innocent child, a violence so senseless it has eroded the last shred of sense of safety even inside private homes.

Local resident Sandra encapsulated the widespread anger and despair felt across the community: “People not even safe in their own homes again…. Sleeping and getting shot? And a baby, too? Nah, this country reaching somewhere real dark now. And all this happening in an SoE? What is the point then? Because it is clearly not working.”

One long-time resident echoed that sentiment, noting that the unprovoked killing of an infant breaks even the unwritten rules of criminal conflict that once spared innocent bystanders and children. “This one hit hard,” he said. “It is not just another headline—it’s a baby. I still trying to wrap my head around that. If you come for a man, wrong is wrong, but you come for him. Back in the day, there was an order. These young, wannabe thugs have no care for anyone or anything anymore.”

Another resident added that the attack has left the entire community unable to sleep soundly: “When children are getting killed, people are genuinely frightened to even sleep properly because we don’t know what is coming next.”

This double murder is far from an isolated incident in St James, which has seen a steady surge of brutal gun violence over the past 18 months across Dundonald Hill, Belle Vue and surrounding neighborhoods. A timeline of major violent incidents in the area reads like a chronicle of growing chaos: Just two weeks before the double killing, on March 16, Joseph Sutton was already targeted in a separate shooting that left another man injured. In February, two men from Laventille, 20-year-old Israel Payson and 24-year-old Jubriel Worrell, were shot dead during Jouvert celebrations on Damien Street and Mucurapo Road. In January, 24-year-old Jair Gilkes and 21-year-old Miguel Joseph were killed in a shooting near the Belle Vue Community Centre, with a third man wounded. In December 2025, 56-year-old Nicole Ovid was beaten to death and her body left on a Finland Street pavement, with 60-year-old Kenneth Charles charged in connection with her killing. In May 2025, 28-year-old Mark Anthony Ellis was killed and his 20-year-old companion wounded in a drive-by shooting as they socialized under a shed on Alfred Richards Street. The earliest high-profile killing on record dates back to October 2022, when 30-year-old Korey Clarke and 31-year-old Samantha Patrick were found shot dead in their bed just off Dundonald Hill, leaving their unharmed seven-month-old daughter in the room with their bodies. Four men have since been charged in that double killing, along with weapons offenses.

Even for a community long accustomed to the threat of violence, the brutal killing of a sleeping infant has pushed residents to a breaking point, with widespread calls for action to address the failure of current public safety measures to stem the tide of bloodshed.

Senior Superintendent Garvin Henry, the top law enforcement official for Trinidad and Tobago Police Service’s (TTPS) Western Division, has openly confirmed a modest but concerning uptick in homicide cases across the jurisdiction in 2024. In an exclusive interview with the *Sunday Express* conducted last week, Henry stated, “We are seeing an increase, I will admit. The last figures I saw showed a slight increase in murders in the Western Division, and that is of concern to us, and that is a major part of our focus.” Despite acknowledging the upward trend in killings, Henry stressed that local law enforcement cannot reverse this pattern without active collaboration from members of the public.

A devastating residential fire in the Laventille community has claimed the life of an 86-year-old wheelchair-dependent woman and left four of her relatives without a home, just one day after another destructive blaze left 12 people homeless in Tobago.

The victim, identified as Elise Sarah Morris, was trapped inside the single-family home on Robinson Lane when the fire broke out on Thursday afternoon. At the time of the incident, Morris was alone in the property: her niece Alicia Morris, 42, who lived at the home with Elise and her three children aged 3, 10, and 15, had left to run an errand between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., and the children were playing at a nearby neighbor’s residence.

Alicia told local media outlet *Express* that she had arranged for someone to check on her aunt, who had recently developed memory issues and relied on a wheelchair for 15 years. Within 45 minutes of her leaving the property, she received an urgent call alerting her that her home was ablaze. By the time she rushed back, the entire structure was already engulfed in uncontrollable flames.

One brave neighbor made two separate attempts to enter the burning building to rescue Elise, but was forced to retreat both times due to the extreme intensity of the fire. First responders eventually recovered the elderly woman’s body from beneath the structure, which featured a mixed concrete and timber floor plan.

Alicia has ruled out electrical failure as a potential cause of the fire, noting that the property had been disconnected from the power grid for four months. While she could not confirm the exact origin of the blaze, she said the fire is believed to have started in Elise’s bedroom. Alicia told reporters that a passing motorist had stopped to light a candle for Elise shortly before the fire, and she suspects the candle may have accidentally fallen and ignited surrounding materials. An official investigative report from the local Fire Service is expected to be released next week, which will confirm the cause of the blaze.

For the Morris family, the loss extends far beyond the destruction of property: the Robinson Lane home was a multi-generational family property where dozens of relatives grew up, holding decades of shared memories. Elise, who had no biological children of her own, raised Alicia from a young age, and Alicia described her as a maternal figure.

Local councillor Adana Griffith-Gordon, who represents the Laventille area, visited the scene on Thursday and extended her formal condolences to the Morris family. She confirmed that initial emergency assistance has already been deployed to support the displaced family. The family was able to stay with a neighbor on Thursday night, and the Disaster Management Unit of the San Juan/Laventille Regional Corporation completed a full damage assessment on Friday morning.

So far, the regional corporation has provided three mattresses for the displaced family, while local Member of Parliament Kareem Marcelle has contributed a food hamper and a temporary food assistance card. Griffith-Gordon’s office is currently working to secure long-term alternative accommodation for Alicia and her three children, noting that staying with friends and neighbors long-term is an unsustainable arrangement for a family of four. Marcelle has also reached out to Vandana Mohit, Minister of the People, Social Development and Family Services, as well as senior officials at the Ministry of Housing to request additional support. Griffith-Gordon confirmed that the Fire Service responded promptly to the emergency, though she could not provide an exact arrival time.

Thursday’s fatal fire marks the second total loss of a family home to fire within a 48-hour period across Trinidad and Tobago. On Wednesday, an overnight blaze destroyed a home on Windward Road in Bad Rock, Belle Garden, Tobago, leaving 12 people – ten adults and two children – displaced.

Trinidad and Tobago’s ongoing state of emergency (SoE), implemented to curb rising violent crime, has been marred by persistent gang-related violence, with 30 people murdered across the nation since the measure took effect last month. This official death toll was confirmed by Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Suzette Martin, who spoke publicly following two fatal shootings that rocked the communities of San Juan and Valencia on Friday.

While investigations into the motives of the two most recent killings remain in early stages, Martin noted that a large portion of the homicides recorded during the SoE can be tied to local gang activity, with others linked to other forms of organized criminal enterprise. She emphasized that law enforcement remains deeply troubled by the persistence of murder even under emergency public safety measures, telling local outlet *Trinidad Express*, “It just goes to show how lawless our land can be at times.”

The 2026 state of emergency was formally approved on March 2 and came into force the following day, enacted in response to alarming crime rates recorded in the first two months of the year. As of Saturday evening, the total national homicide count for 2026 already stands at 92.

Police officials have acknowledged that emergency measures have yielded mixed results across different crime categories. During a media briefing held last month at the Port of Spain Police Administration Building, Police Service media ambassador Owie Russell shared early crime data comparing the first three weeks of the current SoE (March 3 to March 23) to the same period of the previous emergency declaration. The data showed significant declines in several major offences: reported sexual offences dropped from 54 to 13, reported kidnappings for ransom fell to just one case, residential break-ins decreased from 74 to 50, and overall robberies plummeted from 125 to 51.

However, Russell also confirmed a troubling uptick in home invasion incidents, noting that active investigations are ongoing into all unsolved cases.

The push for a new state of emergency came after crime statistics released in the Senate laid bare the severity of the nation’s public safety crisis before the measure was enacted. In the first two months of 2026, before the SoE was declared, more than 1,200 serious criminal offences were reported across the country, while law enforcement clearance (detection) rates remained stuck at stubbornly low levels. Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander told the Senate this week that provisional police data recorded 725 serious offences in January, with an additional 479 reported in February.

The most recent violence unfolded in two separate incidents early Friday. In Valencia, 42-year-old Sherman Lambkin, widely known by the nickname “Gummy,” was gunned down inside a private residence after an armed gunman forced entry to the property. Police accounts confirm Lambkin was visiting a female acquaintance at her home around 2:45 a.m. when the attacker breached the front door and opened fire. The witness told investigators she saw Lambkin fall immediately after the first volley of shots, before the gunman approached the downed man and fired multiple additional fatal shots before fleeing the scene.

Multiple specialized law enforcement units, including the Eastern Division Task Force, Homicide Region II, local criminal investigation teams from Valencia and Sangre Grande, and the national Crime Scene Unit, responded to the call just after 3 a.m. Responding officers found Lambkin lying supine on the kitchen floor of the small concrete home, where he was pronounced dead at 5 a.m.

Hours earlier, in San Juan, 35-year-old Anand Joseph—also known as “Mamoo,” a resident of Laventille Road—was found shot to death inside a parked vehicle just a short distance from his home. Police preliminary investigations estimate Joseph was killed shortly after midnight on Friday. Both killings remain under active investigation.