Commissioner of Police, Gary Griffith, and the Executive of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) are offering sincerest condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of No. 7525 PC Kent Neptune who died following a road traffic accident last night.

PC Kent Neptune, who has over eight (8) years’ service, was last attached to the Mon Repos Police Station.

He leaves to mourn his wife, three (3) sons and daughter.

According to the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS), on the night of 20th May 2021, PC Neptune reportedly lost control of his vehicle while proceeding North along the Sir Solomon Hochoy Highway in the vicinity of the Harmony Hall Housing Development.

The vehicle overturned along the median.

At 10:10pm, Officers of the Traffic and Highway Patrol Branch, who were responding to a report of a road traffic accident, found PC Neptune unresponsive on the Southbound lane several feet away from the vehicle.

Units from the Emergency Response Patrol, the Mon Repos Police, and Fire Stations and the District Medical Officer subsequently arrived at the scene where the Officer was pronounced dead.

Sgt (Ag.) Annan Boodoo, of the Mon Repos Police Station, described PC Neptune as an Officer who embodied every principle that one should find in a Police Officer.

Sgt (Ag.) Boodoo said that, “PC Neptune was a very cordial Police Officer, extremely hardworking, and always willing to go the extra mile even as a part-time Special Reserve Police Officer.”

He added, “My time knowing Neptune, I have found him to be very reliable and that he had a great rapport with everyone at the Station and at the Division which testified of this.”

Sgt (Ag.) Boodoo shared that PC Neptune’s colleagues are feeling a deep sense of loss at this time.

A third person has died fol­low­ing the fiery, ear­ly morn­ing crash on Sunday (18th April 2021) along the West­ern Main Road in West­moor­ings. The dri­ver of the car was burnt to death while he was trapped in­side the ve­hi­cle. His two (2) passengers died at Hos­pi­tal while a third person is currently in critical condition at Hospital.

The three (3) vic­tims in the tragic crash have been iden­ti­fied as Jor­rel Williams (the driver), 19, of 119 Belleron Street, Pt. Cumana, Justin Hayes, 21, and Isa­iah Kyle, both al­so from Pt. Cumana. The fourth person in the vehicle who remains at Hospital has on­ly been iden­ti­fied as “Toi.”

Ac­cord­ing to a Po­lice re­port, at about 4:50am on Sunday morning, a blue Hyundai Elantra (PDB 9962), which was be­lieved to be trav­el­ling at a high rate of speed in a west­er­ly di­rec­tion along the West­ern Rain Road in West­moor­ings, when on reach­ing an area just af­ter the West­moor­ings bridge/WASA pump sta­tion, the dri­ver seemed to have lost control and hit an iron fence post on a com­pound on the south­ern side of the road.

Up­on im­pact, Po­lice said, the ve­hi­cle spun sev­er­al times and eventually burst into flames when it fi­nal­ly stopped. The dri­ver, Williams, was trapped in the ve­hi­cle and was burnt to death while the three (3) oth­er oc­cu­pants were tak­en to the St. James Med­ical Fa­cil­i­ty via am­bu­lance.

Hayes was pro­nounced dead at Hos­pi­tal, while Luke, who was un­re­spon­sive, up­on ar­rival at the Hos­pi­tal was sent for a CT scan. Kyle was pro­nounced dead just af­ter Mid­day on Sunday. Meanwhile, the fourth vic­tim, “Toi,” al­so re­ceived emer­gency med­ical care and is said to be on life support at the Hospital.

An unverified video has been circulating on so­cial me­dia which showed the car dri­ving in the wrong di­rec­tion - on the op­po­site side of the West­ern Main Road, when it should have been on the oth­er end.

Speaking to Guardian Media on Sunday, Hayes’ moth­er, Leseli Asha­ki said she had spoke to her son on Sat­ur­day night to “check in with him.” She said, “I called him and told him not to be out on the streets and he said he was not go­ing any­where then to hear this it is very shock­ing and over­whelm­ing for me.”

Asha­ki said her son would have been cel­e­brat­ing his 22nd birth­day next month and was due to mi­grate to Cana­da to live with his fa­ther but had a pending Court case to deal with first. She explained, “He had two (2) cas­es be­fore the Court and one got thrown off so we ex­pect­ed that when he was to go on the 28th of this month, that that too would have been dis­missed. His Po­lice record was the on­ly thing that he was wait­ing on for him to mi­grate with his dad. He was the on­ly child for his fa­ther. He worked as a labour­er.”

Grieving mem­bers of the fam­i­lies placed flow­ers and three (3) can­dles at the scene of the crash.

Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley issued a statement on his Facebook Page on Sunday following the tragic news of the crash, which oc­cured in his con­stituen­cy.

[Source: T&T Guardian]

The lives of two (2) young men - ages 19 and 20 - both from Pt. Cumana, were tragically lost in a fatal road traffic accident along the Western Main Road early this morning (Sunday 18th April 2021).

According to the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS), at around 4:50am, Officers from the Western Division responded to a fatal road traffic accident involving a blue Hyundai Elantra driven by 19-year-old Jorrel Williams from Pt. Cumana. There were also three (3) other occupants in the car.

According to information received, the vehicle was seen heading West along the Western Main Road when the driver lost control. The vehicle spun several times, crashed into a fence, and then burst into flames. The driver and 20-year-old passenger, Justin Haynes, also from Pt Cumana, succumbed to their injuries. The other two (2) passengers were transported to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital by Emergency Medical Services.

Meanwhile, another road accident took place around 7pm on Friday (16th April 2021), and resulted in an unidentified male pedestrian being fatally struck by a black Toyota RAV 4 SUV on the Southbound lane of the Uriah Butler Highway near the Munroe Road Flyover. The driver is assisting Chaguanas Police with the investigation.

The TTPS has extended heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims. The two (2) incidents have brought the 2021 road accident fatalities to twenty-eight (28), compared to thirty-six (36) for the same period last year. Although this represents a reduction of 22%, the TTPS notes that these incidents are preventable.

The TTPS is urging the public to exercise greater care, caution, and responsibility when using the nation’s roads.

29-year-old Aftab Bri­an Ali from Toco and an unidentified pedestrian are both dead following a major accident last night (Tuesday 16th March 2021) along the Uri­ah But­ler High­way in Chaguanas.

The accident took place around 6:30pm (dur­ing rush-hour traf­fic) af­ter Ali, driving a Nissan Frontier along the Northbound lane, swerved to avoid hit­ting a man cross­ing the High­way be­tween the John Pe­ter walkover and the As­saraf Road walkover. After hitting the pedestrian, Ali lost control of his Frontier, which flipped several times and ended up on the Southbound lane.

Both Ali and the pedes­tri­an died on the scene. Ali, of McIn­tosh Trace, To­co Main Road, To­co, was 29. Two (2) pas­sen­gers in Ali’s ve­hi­cle were rushed to Hos­pi­tal. The pedestrian remained on the North­bound lane of the High­way for sev­er­al hours following the tragic accident. Po­lice iden­ti­fied the man on­ly as an “In­di­an Na­tion­al.”

Traf­fic piled up on the South­bound lane, past the Val­sayn In­ter­change for sev­er­al hours, as Fire Officers had to block two (2) lanes of the Highway in order to clear de­bris and await the re­moval of the bod­ies. Traf­fic on the North­bound lane al­so piled up, as Fire Trucks blocked the lane where the pedes­tri­an’s body lay.

Both bodies were still on the roadway up to 8:30pm, according to reports.

[Source: T&T Guardian]

UPDATE (9pm): Two (2) persons are confirmed dead. According to new details, a vehicle traveling on the Northbound lane of the Highway swerved to avoid hitting a pedestrian who was attempting to cross the Highway. The driver still hit the pedestrian, lost control, flipped several times and ended up on the Southbound lane. Both the pedestrian and driver were killed.

There are reports of standstill traffic on the Southbound lane of the Uriah Butler Highway in the vicinity of Divali Nagar in Chaguanas due to a major accident. Details are still sketchy regarding the accident, but a video from the scene shows an overturned vehicle with two (2) bodies on the road - one reportedly dead and the other person injured.

This is a developing story - refresh this page for updates.

36-year-old Mar­cus Leza­ma, a truck dri­ver from Fos­ter Ex­ten­sion Road in San­gre Grande, died on Saturday night (6th March 2021) in a tragic accident along the Northbound lane of the Solomon Ho­choy Highway in Ch­agua­nas.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, Lezama was dri­ving a truck and trail­er with a ship­ment of frozen French fries around 10pm, when someone allegedly gave him a ‘bad drive’ near the Mod­ern Elec­tri­cal Lim­it­ed build­ing. In swerving to avoid a collision with the ve­hi­cle, he apparently lost con­trol of his truck. This led the truck and trail­er to ‘fishtail,’ sending it in­to a deep ditch that sep­a­rates the High­way from the South­ern Main Road.

The ship­ping con­tain­er par­tial­ly de­tached from the trail­er and fell on the cab of the truck with Leza­ma in­side.

Fire Of­fi­cers re­spond­ed to the scene and removed Leza­ma from the wreck­age. He was then taken to the Ch­agua­nas Health Fa­cil­i­ty for treatment, but was unfortunately pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.

Leza­ma’s sis­ter, Yolande, de­scribed her broth­er as hard-work­ing and ambitious during a brief interview on Sunday from her home in Mal­abar, Ari­ma, stating, “We grow up hard but he always de­ter­mined to make it.” She noted that their moth­er passed away when they were children and they were raised by rel­a­tives.

According to Yolande, Lezama fin­ished build­ing his house in San­gre Grande and was work­ing on build­ing a set of apart­ments to sup­ple­ment his in­come. She also noted her broth­er al­ways loved trucks and be­gan dri­ving them as soon as he turned 18 and got his dri­ver’s per­mit.

There were re­ports of traf­fic con­ges­tion along the High­way up to 4pm on Sunday afternoon, as the transport company that employed Lezama took several hours to survey the scene and deliberate the safest method to extract the wreckage from the ditch. Cranes were eventually called in, which also contributed to the traffic.

A post-mortem is ex­pect­ed to be per­formed on Leza­ma’s body at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St. James on Monday (8th March 2021).

[Source: T&T Guardian]