The Tribune

By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

POLICE have taken seven people into custody in connection with the apparent shooting death of a father of two outside a nightclub on Elizabeth Avenue early on Saturday morning.

The club’s two operators and five employees are helping police with the investigation.

Officer-in-charge of the Central Detective Unit, Chief Superintendent Clayton Fernander, said police are following a line of inquiry that suggests that something that transpired in or near the nightclub led to the killing.

Police have not yet released the official identity of the man, but The Tribune understands that he is father-of-two Rasario Palacious.

According to initial reports, police received a call shortly before 7am about a body of a male lying in the parking lot near a nightclub on Elizabeth Avenue.

Police first reported that officers found a man who had apparent stab wounds.

However, according to Chief Supt Fernander yesterday, the victim’s injuries appeared to be more consistent with gunshot wounds.

The man’s body was discovered sprawled in the parking lot next to a vehicle.

Officials believe that the body was in there for two to three hours.

Police have sealed off the Elizabeth Avenue club and are now treating the establishment as an active crime scene.

Saturday’s homicide pushed the country’s murder toll to 61 for the year.

Last Friday, police said a man died in hospital shortly after he was shot in front of a property in the vicinity of Hampton Street and Montrose Avenue after 4pm.

He was approached by two men with handguns who drove up in a Honda Civic and shot him about the body.

The gunmen left the scene and the victim was rushed by private vehicle to hospital, where he succumbed to his critical injuries.

Last Tuesday, National Security Minister Dr Bernard Nottage announced that overall crime was down 29 per cent from January 1 to June 14 compared to the same time last year.

According to statistics he presented in the House of Assembly, from January 1, 2016 to June 14, 2016 murders fell by 22 per cent compared to the same period last year.

Since last Tuesday, five people have been killed in five days.

Dr Nottage has come under heavy criticism for his handling of the country’s vexing crime dilemma.

There have been countless calls for his resignation, all of which have fallen on deaf ears.

Ahead of the 2012 election, the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) campaigned that it had the solution to crime, drawing attention to “490 plus” murders in the five years under the Free National Movement government.

The fatal shooting of Saturday’s victim moved the total homicide count since May 7, 2012 - when the PLP assumed office - to 519.