POS murders a result of ‘beef’

Head of the Port-of- Spain Division Radcliffe Boxhill said this in an interview with Newsday after a rash of murders were committed in the Port-of- Spain area over the past two weeks. Boxhill said to combat this, the police have engaged in a conflict resolution campaign which started in 2016.

“This is something that we have been trying to get established over the past 12 months. The statistics have shown that it has been making an effect on the rate of murders.” Newsday was told that the murder rate in Port-of-Spain saw a 57 percent decrease between 2015 and last year and has seen a further decrease this year. However the recent murders that have occurred in the nation’s capital have raised the concern of the police.

The latest of these murders is that of 28-year-old Quicny Allen, of Duncan Street, who was killed on Thursday at the corner of Nelson Street, Independence Square. Two days earlier, 42-yearold Ricardo John, a resident of Riverside Plaza, was killed by bullets intended for another man while he was going to a parlour on Besson Street, a stone’s throw away from his home.

A week before that, on April 3, 19-year-old Kadeem Richardson was killed on Duncan Street.

Boxhill said all three murders are now being investigated by Portof- Spain homicide detectives, but no arrests have been made thus far.