INNOCENT BLOOD SHED

According to reports, at about 9 pm Leandra Alexander of Crown Trace in Enterprise, Chaguanas was liming with friends at Building 7 in Maloney with her son Liam, 11, and daughter Lael, nine. Without warning, two gunmen approached the building opened fire. They ran into the building and continued shooting randomly. When they ran out of bullets, the men ran to a nearby car which sped off.

When the shooting ended, both Lael and Liam were lying on the ground scraming in pain.

They were shot in the left and right arms respectively.

A report was made to the Maloney Police and the children were rushed to the Children’s Hospital at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complec in Mt Hope where they remain warded in stable condition.

When Sunday Newsday visited Building 7 yesterday, bullet holes — some from Friday night and others from recent attacks — were clearly visible on the walls, a grim reminder that death from a bullet is a daily reality for those living there and those visiting.

Bloodstains from where Lael and Liam lay, were still on the ground outside Building 7.

Police sources said that an ongoing war between thugs and gangsters from Building 9 and Building 7 is believed to be behind the shooting incident on Friday night as Building 9 gunmen mistook the people liming at Building 7 to be rivals. A manhunt for th gunmen on Friday night and into yesterday morning proved futile.

BULLET IN BEDROOM Claire White, 54 and a Maloney resident for 21 years, said that she was almost killed during the incident as a bullet went into her bedroom.

“Thank God I was not in that bedroom,” she exclaimed. White said that during the time of the shooting she was in her home and heard the gunshots. She heard a neighbour shouting that, “dem fellas shooting up yuh window.” When White came out of the bedroom she found a bullet on her bed; the bullet had gone through her window, hit her bed, then the roof and landed on her bed.

During Sunday Newsday’s visit yesterday police officers arrived to collect spent shells and to speak to residents in an effort to get a clearer picture of the shooting on Friday night when innocent blood was shed.

She said that last week, there were shootings for three days straight. Things cooled off on Thursday and on Friday night, little Liam and Lael were shot.

She lamented that there are elderly and ailing people in Building 7, who can at any time, collect a bullet. Another resident said that in Maloney, it pays to drop the ground when gunshots are fired.

“In here is a war zone,” the resident said.

For White, she has had enough.

“I don’t want to live here. I cannot sleep in a prison. I cannot live like that,” she cried. She called for round the clock police patrols in the area. She reported that presently, police drive around but do not come out to check that things are ok. Almost all the Maloney residents interviewed yesterday asked that their names be withheld due to safety concerns.

DUCK AND RUN A man said he was liming outside the building when the shooting occurred and had to duck then run to avoid being shot. “Two gunmen run out a car and start to shoot up the place just so like mad men.” He continued: “It have war going on in the place but the targets of the gunmen were not there Friday night. They had no reason to shoot. It is almost like they decided, ‘we here already let us just shoot up the place’. Theu have their target, they have their enemies...but the enemies were not around,” he said.

“War ain’t making no sense in Maloney. If you sit down and ask them ‘what they warring for? What they warring about?’ They can’t give you a proper answer.

They just warring because they say they have gun and they just warring one another.” He said that “a couple of building warring a couple of building.” He called for more police foot patrols which they used to have under previous senior police.

A female resident reported that during the shooting there were little children as young as five and “they had to dive on the ground for their life”. She said that if she had been outside at the time she could have been “blown away”.

She lamented that innocent people were “getting take down” in the shootouts and Building 7 had hard working, respectable people.

She reported that things had been quiet for a year but in early 2017 the shootings had “picked back up”. She recalled a recent incident when a gunman walked into the building and started shooting. “I had to run and throw my frame.” She said that children and old people, like her father, now fear for their life.