‘Sixx’ and ‘Seven’ gangs create turmoil in Laventille, residents crying out for help

The es­ca­lat­ing war be­tween these two ri­val gangs has not on­ly cre­at­ed un­easi­ness in the East Dry Riv­er area but al­so in the heart of Port-of-Spain when a mes­sage was sent to the Sixx boss by his ri­vals who shot up a car at City Gate in­jur­ing one man while a fe­male rel­a­tive of the Sixx boss es­caped un­hurt

Mark Bas­sant

Lead Ed­i­tor, In­ves­tiga­tive Desk

The sound of au­to­mat­ic gun­fire from war­ring gangs pierced the Laven­tille hills two Mon­days ago dur­ing the mid-morn­ing pe­ri­od, caus­ing chil­dren of the Rose Hill RC Pri­ma­ry School, fear in their eyes, to cow­er in ter­ror.

Video of the in­ci­dent viewed thou­sands of times on so­cial me­dia drew wide­spread con­dem­na­tion and forced law en­force­ment to take de­ci­sive ac­tion through armed com­fort pa­trols to pro­tect the vul­ner­a­ble, who were at risk when­ev­er gun­men struck, bold­ly, pick­ing off their tar­gets with no thought for the in­no­cents in their path.

Gang war­fare and gang reprisal killings have not on­ly spi­ralled out of con­trol but in­no­cent peo­ple have been shot and wound­ed and even killed in some cas­es. The num­ber of mur­ders for 2022 now stands at 524 and count­ing as it edges to­wards the sec­ond-high­est mur­der count of 539 record­ed in 2019. The coun­try is hurtling to­wards meet­ing the record high­est mur­der count ever–550 in 2008.

Res­i­dents of Laven­tille and its en­vi­rons are fa­mil­iar with the gang ri­val­ry and what has pushed the Rose Hill com­mu­ni­ty and oth­ers to the brink.

They said fight­ing for turf or ter­ri­to­ry, guns and drugs and oth­er il­lic­it items to ‘bad blood’ over who gets gov­ern­ment con­tracts, plain jeal­ousy or even a fall­out over a fe­male could trig­ger the ‘war’. Po­lice sources al­so con­firmed this.

A 33-year-old man fa­mil­iar with the Basilon Street gang and re­sid­ing in that area gave some in­sight in­to the Rose Hill shoot­ing.

“That Rose Hill shoot­ing a few weeks ago has a long his­to­ry be­tween two ri­val gangs, the Sixx gang in St Paul Street and the Sev­en gang in Basilon Street,” he said.

“It start­ed be­fore COVID-19 when the ‘Sixx boss’ and the ‘Sev­en boss’ had a falling out over a girl.”

Af­ter a heat­ed ex­change of words, he said, things got vi­o­lent and sub­se­quent­ly out of hand.

The man claimed that the ‘Sixx boss’ sent sev­er­al threats, at times us­ing his so­cial me­dia han­dle via In­sta­gram to do so.

“In 2021, his gang shot and killed a guy called “Chan­nas” in Man­go Rose and they (Sev­en gang) were not tak­ing that. The ‘Sixx boss’ feel he could bul­ly peo­ple and in­ject fear in them. Peo­ple do not want that and they do not want him around here, and the Sev­en gang have to de­fend their life.

“The Sixx gang want to lock the block here and they are not go­ing to al­low that. We want to be able to come and go as we like but these days we can­not do that. They shoot at us any chance they get. Their foot sol­diers are killing in­no­cent peo­ple,” he claimed.

He said the shoot­ing death of Dirwin Gookool on Oc­to­ber 21, at the cor­ner of Alexan­der Place and Laven­tille Road, was one such case.

The es­ca­lat­ing war be­tween these two ri­val gangs has not on­ly cre­at­ed un­easi­ness in the East Dry Riv­er area but al­so in the heart of Port-of-Spain when a mes­sage was sent to the Sixx boss by his ri­vals who shot up a car at City Gate in­jur­ing one man while a fe­male rel­a­tive of the Sixx boss es­caped un­hurt.

As fear and ten­sion grip the com­mu­ni­ty, not even taxi dri­vers who work in the East Port-of-Spain area are im­mune to col­lat­er­al dam­age. “They telling taxi dri­vers who work in this area don’t pick up any­one and drop them in this area be­cause they will kill them,” an­oth­er man said, speak­ing on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty.

None of the res­i­dents from the area where the ri­val gangs are lo­cat­ed is safe from a bul­let.

“If they can­not get to who they want, some­body from the area will have to feel it and it is bet­ter them than us,” said the man who is fa­mil­iar with the Basilon Street gang.

He ex­plained that the gangs use di­ver­sion­ary tac­tics to dis­tract their ri­vals at times so that they can come from an­oth­er di­rec­tion and shoot some­one.

“So all of a sud­den you will start to hear gun­fire up the hill loud, loud and while every­body is cen­tred on that, gun­men run­ning in from an­oth­er di­rec­tion be­hind you and start to shoot,” said the Basilon street man.

“Chil­dren can­not even come out and play on the streets be­cause gun­men are al­ways look­ing to shoot some­body with who they war­ring.

“I will tell you peo­ple have to de­fend them­selves and guns are not cheap. It is $7,000 to $25,000 (re­volver and hand­guns) you might pay for a gun. The younger ones don’t have the mon­ey, but I know the oth­er se­nior ones with con­nec­tions high up get­ting firearms,” he said.

An­oth­er man from Trou Macaque, Laven­tille, al­so fa­mil­iar with the gang ac­tiv­i­ty, ad­mit­ted the youths who have very lit­tle to look for­ward to in the area and with no ac­cess to jobs have been grav­i­tat­ing to gangs and il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties.

“The guns and drugs in the area have cre­at­ed rifts and some of them end up in these small crews. There are times cer­tain con­tracts are giv­en in spe­cif­ic ar­eas and if some­one does not get a piece of the ac­tion it is quite like­ly some­one is go­ing to end up dead. If you try to take some­thing that is not yours you can al­so end up dead.

“This has been go­ing on a long time now…I re­mem­ber know­ing about the Ras­ta and Mus­lim gangs and that is all I knew, but now is to­tal chaos on the ground,” said a man who has known the life and served 13 years in jail for mur­der.

“Gov­ern­ment has plen­ty of blame to take for this last­ing gang prob­lem,” he added.

“Now is a com­bi­na­tion of things they are killing for: to take over some­body’s turf or jeal­ousy and all kinds of things,” said the ex-con­vict.