An­na-Lisa Paul

an­na-lia.paul@guardian.co.tt

Se­nior Re­porter

Hours af­ter act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin re­port­ed this year’s Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions were in­ci­dent free, four peo­ple were shot in St James yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, one of them fa­tal­ly, forc­ing an ear­ly shut­down of the cel­e­bra­tions there.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, gun­shots were heard com­ing from an area near Vi­dale Street and West­ern Main Road, out­side the St James Mar­ket, around 4.30 pm.

As mas­quer­aders and on­look­ers scat­tered, peo­ple rushed to as­sist and found four men suf­fer­ing from gun­shot wounds.

One man, who re­mained uniden­ti­fied up to last night, died at the scene. The po­lice, how­ev­er, be­lieve the vic­tim was a Venezue­lan na­tion­al. The three oth­ers, who were lo­cals stand­ing near the vic­tim when the shoot­ing start­ed, were tak­en to the St James In­fir­mary for treat­ment. Their con­di­tions were said to be sta­ble up to press time last night.

The shoot­ing led to po­lice lock­ing off fur­ther fes­tiv­i­ties in St James, al­though a sus­pect was cap­tured short­ly af­ter.

Se­nior po­lice al­so con­firmed a firearm and a quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion was re­cov­ered short­ly af­ter the at­tack.

Of­fi­cers, led by Snr Supt Williams and act­ing Supt Gyan, re­spond­ed to the in­ci­dent.

A mo­tive is yet to be es­tab­lished for the shoot­ing.

The mur­der count for the year stood at 63 up to last night.