By ALEXANDER BRUZUAL Wednesday, September 19 2012

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SALUTE: Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams salutes during the playing of the National Anthem yesterday at the opening ceremony for the Gon...

NATIONAL Security Minister Jack Warner yesterday boasted that in the nine days the police and army have set up camp in various parts of Laventille, there has been no murders committed in that hotspot community.

Warner made this disclosure as he delivered the feature address at the official opening ceremony for the Gonzales’ Joint Community Services Centre along Gloster Lodge Road in Gonzales.

“I was advised that I should not speak on this and that I should simply leave it be. But I have decided that I simply cannot, because people need to know.

“For the past nine days, there has not been a single killing in the Laventille area. The last murder took place on September 9, and on that day Errol John and Robert Farrell were killed. Since then you haven’t heard a peep...not a boo.

“Yet, if a murder happens in the area tomorrow, you will see it on the front page of every newspaper and it will be the leading story in the various media and so many people will call for action by Government. But you don’t see the good work of the police and the Defence Force being commended and they ought to be.

“The Acting Commissioner of Police (Stephen Williams) must be commended. The Chief of Defence Staff Brigadier Kenrick Maharaj must be commended. But more importantly, the people of Laventille must be commended for saying, “enough is enough”, and taking a stand with these law enforcement agencies,” Warner said.

Farrell, 46, a welder of Clifton Hill and 55-year-old Errol “Shine” John of Beverly Hills, were killed on September 9, in two separate incident. At about 8.25 pm on that day, John along with his wife, had just gotten out of a taxi and were walking toward their Building Ten, Beverly Hills apartment when a gunman walked up to them and shot John several times before calmly walking away.

Officers of the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF), who were the first to arrive on the scene, rushed the injured man to Port-of-Spain General Hospital, where he died while undergoing surgery.

Twenty minutes after the John shooting, a volley of shots was heard and officers who were processing the crime scene where John was shot, went to Clifton Hill where Farrell’s wife pointed out her husband’s body in the yard of his home.

Investigators said Farrell was at home with his wife when he told her he was going to use the outside washroom. The woman later heard several loud explosions and she later found her husband’s bullet-riddled body.

A spate of Laventille killings prompted Government to send in the army with soldiers setting up camp in the area.

Speaking last night at a public meeting in Beverly Hills, Laventille Warner announced that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar will from 2.30 pm today, tour parts of Laventille with other Government ministers.

“And while other people walked towards President’s House, we will tomorrow walk in Laventille and meet with the people and hear their concerns,” Warner said last night, in reference to a walk yesterday led by Opposition PNM leader Dr Keith Rowley, which started outside the Red House and ended outside President’s House.