Tuesday night’s killing of a tattoo artist, who was shot 16 times, has left his family in a state of shock. Shaquille Toppin, 24, was gunned down outside his home in Danesbury, near Retreat Road in Black Rock, St Michael, around 9:55 p.m.

Sister Zonel Forde said they were still trying to come to grips with the tragic circumstances, as they comforted each other. “There is nothing I can say to describe what happened; seeing him lying on the road was just horrific,” she told THE NATION on Wednesday afternoon. “He was with us here inside and said he coming back. Then we heard the gunshots and immediately we dropped to the ground. Down here was chaotic.”(Barbados Nation)…[+]

CARABALLEDA, Venezuela, – Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido yesterday said that President Nicolas Maduro’s adversaries were “not afraid” even though he was briefly detained by intelligence agents, days after announcing he would be willing to replace the increasingly isolated president.

Guaido’s comments on Friday spurred some opposition sympathizers to conclude that he had declared himself interim president, and led several government officials to say he should be arrested for treason. Intelligence agents on Sunday pulled him from his car on the way from the capital, Caracas, to the coastal town of Caraballeda, his wife and opposition legislators said. He was released shortly thereafter, they said. “I want to send a message to Miraflores – the game has changed,” said Guaido, 35, the head of the opposition-run congress, referring to the presidential palace, from a stage surrounded by cheering opposition sympathizers.

“Here we are! We are not afraid!”(Reuters)…[+]

Two days of “in­tense” polic­ing saw 138 peo­ple ar­rest­ed by po­lice over the week­end. In the ex­er­cise which start­ed on Fri­day at 6 am, which saw 22 drug blocks be­ing searched, eight guns, as well as a va­ri­ety of am­mu­ni­tion, were seized.

Po­lice said 13 pro­hib­it­ed im­mi­grants were al­so de­tained and quan­ti­ties of drugs were al­so seized as well as two stolen ve­hi­cles re­cov­ered, a state­ment from the Po­lice Ser­vice said. The ex­er­cise, the first roll of out of Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith’s Op­er­a­tion Strike Back for 2019 start­ed just four days af­ter the Com­mis­sion­er was hos­pi­talised and or­dered to rest. He spear­head­ed the op­er­a­tion which took place in all nine polic­ing di­vi­sions across the coun­try. He said the coun­try re­quired such an ex­er­cise.

“There were a num­ber of dif­fer­ent things we can look at to show the ben­e­fit of this op­er­a­tion over the last 48 hours. It showed high vis­i­bil­i­ty, it was a pow­er­ful de­ter­rent and we ba­si­cal­ly lock down the coun­try,” said Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith while ad­dress­ing mem­bers of the me­dia short­ly af­ter 6 am at the St James Po­lice Bar­racks yesterday. He spoke while sur­round­ed by se­nior of­fi­cers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice in­clud­ing As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Crime) Jayson Forde, ACP (South) Joanne Archie, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent (Port-of-Spain) Floris Hodge-Grif­fith, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Michael Daniel of the North­ern Di­vi­sion and Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Pe­ter Dom­inque of the West­ern Di­vi­sion.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]