Security officer Brian Warren was shot dead yesterday morning, a stone’s throw away from his Moruga home as he stood awaiting transport to go to work. Up to last night, police had no motive for the shooting of Warren. Apart from for a statutory rape charge in 2013, police said Warren led a quiet life.

Reports state Warren, 24, was standing on Samuel Cooper Junction, Moruga, around 5.30 am awaiting a drop from his co-workers at Allied Security when a man walked up to him and shot him.

When his co-workers got to the scene some five minutes later, they saw Warren’s body on the ground.

In an interview yesterday, one of Warren’s close friends, who asked to remain anonymous, said Warren’s family had been receiving threats from the person they believed killed him.

The friend said the family needed police protection as they were fearful for their lives.

“We want the police to come and park up on the junction tonight into tomorrow cause people really frighten here, we don’t know what going to happen.”

However, an officer at the St Mary’s Police Post told the Sunday Guardian they received no report of threats to the family.

The officer said there were also no suspects.

Although Lincoln Boodoo’s lifeless body bore no marks of violence when he was found yesterday, his family remains confused as to how he died.

Boodoo, 64, was last seen at his Victoria Village, San Fernando home around 5 pm on Saturday. His body was found inside his white AD wagon on Pitmoon Street, Ste Madeline around noon on Monday. Thieves stripped the car of its tyres and headlights.

In an interview yesterday, his daughter, Natasha Boodoo said her father was accustomed to driving around on evenings. Lincoln was a father of four and grandfather of three.

“That was sort of his hobby, he would bathe and get dressed in the evening and go for drives,” Natasha said.

“So when he went Saturday evening no one thought anything of it until he failed to come back home.”

A report was made to the Ste Madeleine Police Station and Natasha said relatives launched their own search party as well.

“We reported him missing on Sunday because we knew he wouldn’t just go and don’t come back.”

It was Lincoln’s son, Sherwin, who found his body.

“It was my brother who find the car between 12 and one o’clock, when he find it, there were no lights and tyres on the car. Right now we don’t know what is going on because the entire situation is just so strange.”

Up to late yesterday evening officers of the Ste Madeleine Police Station were on the scene.

Although the Cabo Star vessel seems to have gotten a passing grade from Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan, Tobago’s small guest house owners say they are still feeling the brunt of the sea bridge woes.

President of the Bed and Breakfast Association in Tobago, Kaye Trotman, says tourism on the island has taken a nose-dive and the promise of the arrival of a new passenger vessel in the midst of peak season will not help.

Sinanan, speaking at the commissioning of a bridge last Saturday in Tabaquite, said from all the feedback he has been getting, the Cabo Star seems to be adequate enough to meet the needs of the sea bridge.

On April 14, the previous designated inter-island cargo ferry, the Super Fast Galicia, made its last journey between the islands and was returned to its owners, after negotiations between the company and Government for a new lease arrangement broke down.

The Cabo Star is one of two vessels leased since then by Government for one year to service the sea bridge. The other vessel, the Ocean Flower 2, is scheduled to arrive here this week, Sinanan said on Monday without confirming the exact date.

But Trotman, one of the owners of Native Abode, a family-run bed and breakfast in Bon Accord, said even if the Ocean Flower 2 passenger vessel arrives within the next few weeks, the peak season for visitors to Tobago is almost over.

“The reality is the Cabo Star vessel will help some business people, but it really does nothing for the tourism sector,” Trotman said.

“Tourism has been on the decline since 2016. We saw a decrease in the amount of foreigners coming to the island so we began to rely on local tourism, but with these ferry issues that is a bust.”

“Normally I would be booked months in advance, right now I am below 20 per cent with bookings. Most of us in the association are trying to survive the hard times and unfortunately the arrival of a boat in the midst of the peak season will do nothing to assist us, as many families would have made alternative plans for vacation. It is easier for a Trinidadian to get to St Lucia or Barbados than to get to Tobago.”

Head of the Tobago Certified Tour Guide Operators, Harris Mc Donald, said he is also feeling the pinch.

Like Trotman, he said the usual rush for the July/August vacation period is almost non-existent.

“I have a five-room guest house that is usually booked months in advance, but because of the sea bridge problems I had only two sets of visitors for the entire month of July,” Mc Donald said.

“And to make matters worse, both sets of guests stayed for very short periods, so whatever I would have earned in rent basically went back into paying the cleaning lady for her services.”

Mc Donald said not even the Tourism Ministry’s ‘Staycation’ campaign is helping.

“The problem is not getting Trinis to “stay to get away,” it’s actually getting them to Tobago. The flights are all booked up, people are not risking the ‘stand-by’ option and there have been so many issues with the vessels, even if people can get ferry tickets they are just afraid to travel. This has been ongoing since Easter when we first started to have problems with the sea bridge.”

Trotman agreed, saying, “While the ‘Stay to Get Away’ campaign is commendable, it cannot operate in isolation. While you are showing off the properties we have to offer in Tobago, people also need to be able to come to island.”

Darrel ‘Ernie’ Mansingh was known for his bright smiles and peaceful nature. It may have been the latter that cost the 19-year-old his life after he attempted to ‘smooth’ over a fight at a Felicity bar last Friday and later asked one of the fighting parties for a ride, his paternal grandmother, Dularie Mansingh, suggested yesterday. 

Darrel was reported missing on Saturday when he failed to return to his Chase Village home. He had told his mother, Farisha Ali, via phone around 2 am on Saturday, that he was leaving Club Kokonuts in Felicity to come home but was never seen again. Yesterday, his decomposing body was found wrapped in a sheet along Connector Road, Felicity. The body was later taken to the Forensic Science Centre, St James, for an autopsy. 

Speaking to the T&T Guardian at her Bhola Trace, Chase Village home yesterday, hours after her grandson’s body was found, Dularie said one of the people involved in the fight had visited their home Monday night.

“A girl came here last night (Monday) and said she was by the bar when Ernie was there,” Dularie said.

“She say she and her friends get in a fight with a group of four boys and another girl outside the bar they were liming in. She said Ernie told the guys that she was his family and they should done the fight.”

She added, “When everything was done he asked the guys for a ride out of the area and the guys agree. When all of them sit in the car, the girl say she and her friends started busting the glass on the car and hitting it.”

Dularie said the girl told them there were four young men, including the driver and one woman, in the car. 

“He was sitting in the front seat and another fella was squeeze up next to him. She say when they start to beat up the car, the fella drive away with Ernie still in the car.”

But Ernie never made it home.

Farisha Ali was present but unable to speak and had to be placed in a chair by relatives. She cried non-stop as the story of her son’s death was told.

His family passed the information given to them by the girl on to the police and a young man was taken into custody yesterday morning. He led police to the body around 11 am.

“My sons had gone looking all over Felicity for him, but I was telling them to go through the Connector Road and check,” Dularie said.

“That is the only place they didn’t look and that is where they end up finding him.”

Dularie said officers at the Chaguanas Police Station should have done more to find her grandson.

“It was like they wasn’t doing anything, it is the family that find out about the fight and tell them and even after that they still wait until Farisha called and start to get on to go looking for his body. We didn’t have to go through all of this wait if they was doing their work properly.”

The only thing Farisha said was, “He didn’t deserve to die like that.”

Farisha was not allowed to see his body on the scene yesterday and his sister, Sarah Ali, said their mother collapsed several times.

Agriculture Minister Clarence Rambharat says there are “cartels” operating within farmers’ markets across the country, controlling who can sell in the government facilities. 

Rambharat was addressing attendees at the sod-turning ceremony for 120-car car park at the Southern Wholesale Market, Debe yesterday. He said the new car park will help to alleviate problems for space at the facility and will be constructed over a five-month period on 60,000 square feet of land just outside of the market. 

Speaking to the media after the ceremony, he said, “One of the issues we encountered at markets across Trinidad, including Debe and Macoya, is the existence of people who want to control the space—in the case of Macoya for example - in terms of who gets the most prominent positions, the ones who are by the gates when the customers come in—the first spot that they (customers) will encounter.”

He said there are also safety and security issues at the Southern Wholesale market which he hopes will be remedied in the near future. 

“In Debe, because we have an issue with safety and security and the space is cramped, there are those who want to control the space and decide who is going to occupy and who is not going to occupy— it is a problem that I know has existed for a long time—I have received complaints from the farmers and the vendors and the idea now is to expand the space that is available by removing the car parking from the vending space and putting it into a car park we will make more space available.”

Rambharat said whatever money is spent to beef up security at the facility will be well spent.

“I think by having more space available for anyone who wants to vend—we would reduce some of the pressures, we would also be able to monitor, we would also be able to take control and have the facility secure not only from a food safety point of view but also from a vendor and customer point of view.”

 “Run baby, run!” Yvette Wilson screamed yesterday as her last child, Jereem Richards, sprinted his way to the bronze medal in the men’s 200 metres final at the IAAF World Championships in London.

Wilson and other family members had gathered at her sister Janice Wilson-Phoenix’s home in Point Fortin to view the race as Richards lined up with the possibility of earning a gold medal, having cruised into the final the day before.

And Jereem, 23, did not disappoint his family as he took the bronze medal, just fractionally behind Turkey’s Ramil Guliyev, who took home the gold and South African Wayde van Niekerk, who beat him by fractions of a second. In fact, Guliyev won in 20.09 seconds, while both Nierkerk and Jereem clocked 20.11.  (See pages A48 & A48)

Only one T&T athlete - Ato Boldon in 1997 in Athens - has won a gold medal in the World Championships in the 200 metres event.

Moments before Jereem knelt at the starting blocks, his family, most of whom were clad in T-shirts with his face printed on the front, held hands and sent up a fervent prayer for his success.  

As the race started, Yvette sat on the edge of her seat, clutching a Trinidad and Tobago flag and screaming Jereem’s name.

The excitement may have been a little too much for Jereem’s sister Brittney who jumped a bit too high and landed on this reporter before falling to the ground. The end result was a split lip and a million-dollar smile for her baby brother.

When Yvette could catch her breath, she sent out this message for her son: “Jereem, I am so proud, Mommy loves you, we all love you!”

“Oh my God! I am ecstatic, right now. I am so elated, words can’t express,” she added.

Yvette said she was her son’s number one fan and does not miss any of his races.

“I am his number 1 supporter, I never miss a race, today he has raised my pores, I feel like my heart is beating out of my chest. I am really happy and thankful because God has kept him.”

She jokingly credited his success to her breadfruit.

“He loves oildown, it is always the first thing he asks for when he comes home ... That is what have him fast so!”

Brittney, who had to pause her celebrations to clean up her busted lip, added, “He worked really hard for this and I am happy to see he can reap the rewards of his hard work, we love you Jereem!”

Grandmother Beatrice Wilson said Jereem had made the nation proud with his efforts.

“He have the country celebrating today! Well done son!” 

Three years after the death of her mother, Cherisse Lambkin is still trying to get the San Fernando General Hospital to release her mother’s medical records.

Frustrated at a lack of action at the hospital, Lambkin, 29, visited the T&T Guardian’s South Bureau yesterday.

She said on December 4, 2014, she received a call from a nurse at the San Fernando Teaching Hospital, informing her of her mother’s death.

“They said she suffered from cardiac arrest…when my mother was alive she always said she didn’t want anyone cutting her open to do an autopsy, so I carried through with that and did not have one done,” Lambkin said. 

The death certificate given to Lambkin also cited cardiac arrest as the cause of death. But after applying for Nestfield’s medical records to take to the family’s insurance provider in 2014, Lambkin said she began to get a run-around.

“I was told to apply to the hospital for the records. When I went there, they said I needed to pay $37 to a bank account and bring back the receipt. I did all of those things and then they said I would have to wait between four to eight weeks for the records to be processed.”

But it’s been three years, countless trips to the hospital and a lot of heartache for Lambkin.

“I have been trying to move on. Since I left high school, I spent all of my time looking after my mother and I just want an end to this. I need some closure. I never doubted what the doctors said about how my mother died but now I have to wonder.”

Lambkin said she is unemployed as she takes care of her three-year-old son who was born with cerebral palsy. 

“I never worked anywhere, I have my five children and with a son with cerebral palsy, I can’t afford a caretaker so I take care of him myself. I would have used up my money looking after my mother’s funeral arrangements and also looking after my sister’s funeral rites last year. Right now I need that money.”

She claimed there are many other people going through the same ordeal in seeking to access medical records. 

Lambkin made a complaint to the hospital’s Quality Control Department yesterday and was told she would be contacted. 

“I don’t know how much longer this complaint will take to process but I am fed up right now. They need to have some kind of proper system in place to deal with medical records so people can get their documents on time, that department is in a very poor state right now.”

Efforts to contact South West Regional Health Authority Acting chief executive officer, Gail Miller-Meade for comment were unsuccessful.

People’s National Movement councillors and aldermen at the Siparia Regional Corporation are once again calling on chairman Dr Glen Ramadharsingh to step down.

This latest squabble in the corporation comes after the United National Congress councillors brought a motion to remove the corporation’s corporate secretary three weeks ago.

The motion was debated but the PNM members walked out of council before a vote could be taken. They now say since then there have been no statutory meetings and no public business being carried out at the SRC.

Yesterday, aldermen Christopher Encinas and Alston Cadore and councillors Maurice Alexander, Gerald Debesette, Christine Neptune and Arlene Ramdeo held a press conference at Irwin Park, Siparia, to air their views. The council has been marred in controversy since Ramadharsingh took over the chairmanship from UNC councillor Leo Doodnath. The UNC has seven council members — five councillors and two aldermen — and the PNM six council members — four councillors and two aldermen.

Earlier this year, the PNM councillors moved a motion to have Ramadharsingh removed from his position, citing mistrust in his chairmanship and his handling of the corporation’s affairs. That motion was defeated as it did not get a majority vote.

Yesterday, Debesette said the move to stop having meetings and carry out corporation business was disrespectful.

“We are here to highlight to the general public what has been happening at the Siparia Regional Corporation. Nothing has been happening for the past three weeks and that is because of the fact of the failed motion against the corporate secretary and the UNC chose to stay away from the corporation and shut down the business of the people for the past three weeks,” Debesette said.

“We had filed a motion against the chairman and the then CEO a couple of months ago and immediately after, at the next meeting, we came back and continued the business of the people. This motion came forward against the corporate secretary and it failed and since then they have not been attending any of the council meetings at the corporation.

“It is disrespectful and we are questioning the leadership of the chairman and asking for him to do the honourable thing and demit office.”

Alexander said Ramadharsingh’s handling of the motion against the corporate secretary had given new life to that motion.

“When we brought the motion two months ago against the chairman, we did it hoping he would pull himself together and take stock of his actions but this action gives that motion life,” Alexander said.

“It shows why we brought that motion and we were well within our rights to bring that motion at that time, because what is happening now is a clear picture of what we were talking about two months ago. That is why at this time I am calling on Dr Glenn Ramadharsingh to understand where he is at this time and do the honourable thing and step down.”

Alexander added: “I am also calling on the Member of Parliament and the Opposition leader and political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar to get involved and have Dr Glenn Ramadharsingh removed because this is your constituency of Siparia, this is your business as well.”

Contacted for comment yesterday, Ramadharsingh said it was the PNM council members who were not operating.

“They are not operating, they walked out of a meeting and their electorate are suffering now,” he said.

“But in our areas, work is continuing and all the funding that had already been approved is being put to proper use, maybe they are not working as hard as they should be.”

He said on August 11 all UNC and PNM members were present to begin the council meeting, but the person who was supposed to chair the meeting did not show up and could not be reached via phone.

“We could not continue with the meeting as the meeting chairman got caught up in a personal emergency and could not come and could not be reached by phone to hand over the responsibility. All of us were there and all of them were there as well, you can call them and ask them.”

He made his own call on the Ministry of Local Government to intervene in the impasse with the corporate secretary.

“I am calling on the relevant authorities to do what is necessary in this situation. We have a situation where the second highest officer holder in the corporation is being perceived as biased. We cannot continue to operate under these conditions.”

Chinese national Lu Wuying was remanded into custody yesterday, after being charged with attempting to bribe a police officer in Princes Town last week.

Wuying was arrested on August 2 at the Joy Xin Supermarket where she worked as a cashier. According to the charge, she corruptly gave a gift of $2,000 to Sgt Roger Richardson as an inducement or reward for his not reporting the detection of a male person of Chinese descent suspected of being an illegal immigrant.

Wuying was detained for 10 days at the Princes Town Police and yesterday, attorneys Subhas Panday, Petranilla Basdeo and Kiran Panday filed a writ of habeas corpus calling on the police to charge or release her. However, even if Wuying was released on the charge she would have remained in custody, as her visa expired in January.

The matter came up for hearing before Justice Devindra Rampersad in the San Fernando High Court. In his application, Subhas Panday told the court that under the Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago, an arrested person should be taken before the relevant authority to be charged as soon as possible. He said 10 days is too long for a person to be kept in custody without being charged.

Panday said Richardson’s explanation that he could not meet with the DPP was not sufficient. He said if Richardson could not meet with the DPP, he should have tried meeting with the Deputy DPP, who has an office in San Fernando, for instructions on whether to charge Wuying. However, by way of state attorney Trisha Ramlogan, Richardson said under the Prevention of Corruption Act, only the DPP can have given instructions to charge Wuying in the matter.

Rampersad ordered that Richardson inform the court by 3 pm whether instructions were given to charge Wuying and the matter was stood down. When it was called again at 3 pm, the instructions were given to charge Wuying. Panday withdrew the writ and asked that the state cover the costs.

Rampersad ordered that the office of the AG pay the cost of Wuying’s legal team in the sum of $7,500.