Driver shot dead, maxi taxi burnt

QUARRELLING men and women, the crackling sounds of fire consuming a maxi taxi and the shattering of windscreen and windows, interrupted the sleep of Embacadere residents in San Fernando, shortly after 4 am yesterday.

Afraid to venture out, residents peeped through their windows to see a HAX 12-seater maxi taxi on fire and the body of Clyde Richard Dennis on the ground nearby.

Dennis, of Maculay, Claxton Bay, was shot to death. He was the driver of the maxi taxi,

Residents said the vehicle came through the Roodal Cemetery on Lady Hailes Avenue to the top of Circle Drive.

“It was there for a while when we heard loud voices, male and female quarrelling. After we hear loud noise as though car doors were slamming, then somebody buss a shot and when we looked out, we saw the vehicle on fire,” one female resident said. “All the neighbour fig trees burn up.”

A male resident in her company said, “I heard the ‘bow’ (referring to the gun shot), but I say not me I not coming out that hour.”

The residents who spoke to Sunday Newsday before the victim was identified, said it appeared that the driver was a stranger to the area, or else he would have known he was driving though a cemetery.

“He not from here. Every time Embacadere quiet down somebody coming to give it a bad name,” the woman stated.

She said when the Fire Services arrived to put out the fire, “I put on my slipper fast and went outside when my neighbour called and say a dead man on the ground.

She said the area where the vehicle was burnt is used by residents to park their vehicles at nights.

“But last night nobody eh park there. I say God is so good,” she said slapping her hands together as she spoke.

Region Three Homicide is continuing investigations.