THERE are conflicting reports about the events that occurred between Broadway in Port of Spain and the Beetham Gardens late Wednesday night which left three men dead- one of them murdered and the other two killed at the hands of police.
On one side, there is the police’s version of events that led to the murder of DVD vendor Anderson Bynoe, 36, and the subsequent killing of Fabian Mauge, 26, and Ricky Roberts, 25, in what police said was a shoot-out with the two as they tried to intercept their car in the Beetham Gardens.
The relatives of the dead men, however, said they were unarmed when they were shot on Wednesday night.
Yesterday, police said the two men were part of a group that had murdered Bynoe about 45 minutes before they were killed by officers.
According to a senior officer who spoke to the Express, around 10.15 p.m., Bynoe was at his stall located just outside Bhaggan’s Drugs on Broadway.
Bynoe, officers said, currently lived in Arima but had previously resided at Beetham Gardens until he was forced to leave due to threats made against his life by other residents. A white Nissan B-15 Sentra stopped outside the drugstore, police said, and two men came out the car, pulled out guns and walked over to Bynoe. They shot him several times at close range, and as he slumped to the pavement, the gunmen walked over to where he lay and shot him several more times, killing him on the spot.
Someone saw what happened and called the police’s E-999 command centre. The command centre, in turn, alerted officers on patrol to be on the look-out for the white Nissan.
Around 11.15 p.m., the white Nissan was spotted by a group of Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) officers in the Beetham Gardens area, officers said. The officers went after the car and intercepted it at 18th Street, Beetham Gardens.
Police said four men came out of the car and started firing at them. The police fired back, hitting three men and two of them, Mauge and Roberts, fell to the ground.
The third man who was shot managed to escape briefly until he was held later by the police while attempting to seek treatment at a Cocorite hospital. A fourth man remained at large up to last night.
Police said they seized a .38 pistol as well as a 9 mm handgun.
However, when the Express visited the Forensic Science Centre in St James yesterday, Mauge’s father, Wayne Mauge, said his son and Roberts had been at a wake being held for a seven-month-old baby in the area for most of Wednesday night and never left the Beetham area. He said during the wake, he saw his son, who appeared to be intoxicated, and advised him to go home, which he did.
Mauge said he, too, went to his home, located at 18th Street, just behind the Beetham Highway berm, and it was while there, he began hearing gunshots. He said he did not venture outside and did not know it was his son and Roberts outside until someone called him out.
He said both men ’got shot right in front my place. The police call them out from behind the wall (berm), and I hear badam, badam, badam ... I didn’t know it was my son’.
Mauge claimed that after shooting the two men, the police picked them up, placed them into their vehicle and sped off. It was only then he came out and spoke to neighbours about what happened. He said it was only when the wife of Roberts called him asking for her husband that he realised his son may have been shot by the police.
’My son had nothing to do with the DVD man. In fact, I know the man’s (Bynoe) mother. This thing was overkill,’ he said.
Several other Beetham Gardens residents who were at the forensic centre also challenged the police’s account of what transpired.
The number of people killed by police for the year thus far rose to 29 following this latest incident. The murder toll also stood at 424 as of last evening.
The Express attempted to get a photo of the white Nissan B-15 as well as the guns the police claimed to have seized yesterday but was unsuccessful.
