50 MURDERS

An upset eyewitness to Jacob’s brutal murder remarked: “You could tell me quarter to six in the morning you planning to kill somebody.” The eyewitness spoke of a “little fella” emerging from the back seat of a car and shooting Jacob once in the head and twice in the back.

“They took nothing,” the eyewitness told Sunday Newsday.

“Raj was just taking out his cooler when this car just drive down, make a U-turn and come back and a little boy come out the back seat and shoot him in his head and then shoot him twice in the back and just jump in the car and gone.

I can’t understand that at all, as Raj is one of the most (sic) nicest person anybody could know.” Jacob’s wife, Halima, and other workers who were present at the time escaped injury. Police believe it was a hit.

According to a police report, Jacob was next to his doubles van when a young man wearing a hoodie got out of a heavily tinted Nissan Sunny B15 car and shot him. He escaped in the waiting vehicle.

Jacob died on the spot.

There was chaos yesterday morning on the roadside where Jacob sold doubles every morning for the last 17 years. Close relatives and friends screamed in anguish on seeing Jacob sprawled on his back in a grassy area mere steps from where his doubles van was parked. Curious onlookers parked their cars at the side of the road as the body lay for almost four hours before it was removed.

Halima, weeping uncontrollably, asked: “Oh God, O God, why they do him that?” As the hearse was taking away the body she begged one last time to touch the van. Jacob was a father of two and lived at Carat Hill, Barrackpore. One of his sons, who asked not to be identified, said his father “played” with him and his brother before he left home for work yesterday.

The 21-year-old trainee pilot said: “He woke up as usual, normal as ever at 3 am to prepare the van and they left home at 5 am to come here to sell. Before leaving, we played with a helicopter.” He said he received the tragic news as he was about to leave home to go on a hiking trip.

“As I was about to go in the maxi they indicated to me that my dad was shot,” the distraught young man said.

The son said he never heard his father complain about any threats on his life and described him as a man who taught his sons “to work for what we want.” He added: “He brought us up the hard way just to show us that we had to learn to earn. He was a people’s person and always ready to assist in good times and bad.” Similar sentiments were echoed by Jacob’s sister, Annie, who said her brother held his annual prayers on Friday and they all had a good time.

“I don’t know what this place coming to,” she said.

Police are yet to establish a motive for the killing and are hoping CCTV cameras in the area could assist in their enquiries. They believe a second car was involved.

A casualty of war And on Friday night, in Enterprise, Chaguanas, Michael Lewis was gunned down in ongoing gang warfare in the community despite the presence of a joint army and police camp recently set up in Lion’s Gate, Crown Trace, a short distance from where Lewis was fatally shot.

Yesterday, Lewis’ grieving mother, Michaelena, 40, admitted her son’s life was always in danger as all young men living in the feuding community had threats made on their lives.

“He is a casualty of this war, and police are doing all they can do in here but it cannot change unless the young men change,” she said.

The mother said it was the reason she was trying to send her first-born to England.

“I wanted him to get away from here, he was intelligent and had potential,” the insurance agent told Sunday Newsday. “He wanted to go back to school but because of the war, and because they threaten to kill all of them he feared to travel to go to work. So if my brothers didn’t have work he did not go out.

So I say I will send him England and he would go back to school and get back on track.” She said she and other members of the family often spoke to him about “hanging out” on the block with other young men.

“Everyone have choices, my son had a choice,” she said. “Every time I hear somebody child dead, my heart going out but I never thought I would be next, but God has given me faith.” Lewis said gunmen often outwit the police and soldiers.

“And that is what happened last night,” he suggested. “I heard just as they left the block the shooting began.” A police report stated that at about 10.15 pm on Friday, officers of the Chaguanas Police Station responded to a report of man being shot along Bhagaloo Street, Enterprise.

Upon arrival Lewis was found bleeding from gunshot wounds.

He was pronounced dead on arrival at the Chaguanas Health Facility where he was taken.

Sunday Newsday was told that following the murder, gunmen went on a spree shooting up areas controlled by their rivals.

Last evening, there were reports that a suspect had been held for the young man’s murder.