Student gunned down

SIMEON KING, a 16-year-old Form Three student at the Russel Latapy High School, was shot 15 times as he hid under a bed at his Never Dirty, Morvant, home on Friday night.

At about 10.30 pm on Friday, four men dressed in black went to King’s home and identified themselves as police officers. They asked for King and when they were told he was not around, the men barged into the house and found King hiding under a bed. They fired 15 shots striking King in the head, chest and other parts of his body.

As the gunmen were fleeing the scene, they struck a teenaged boy in the house with a gun.

Occupants of the house contacted the police who visited the scene along with a District Medical Officer. The body was ordered removed to the Forensic Sciences Centre where a post mortem is due to be performed.

Police sources told Sunday Newsday King was a member of a gang and had recently been given a gun to carry out robberies. When the owner of the gun asked King to return the weapon on Thursday, he refused. The gun owner subsequently sent a message to King that he was going to deal with the matter the best way he knew how.

King’s relatives yesterday denied that he was a member of any gang. They claimed the schoolboy had been accused of giving information to members of a rival gang and that was the reason why he was shot dead.

Relatives said King was supposed to leave the country shortly to go abroad to study.

The killing pushed the murder toll for the year so far to 199.