DEADLY DISPUTE - Arima man shot dead by older relative

A DOMESTIC dispute between members of an Arima family ended in death on Thursday morning when a 38-year-old labourer was shot once in the chest at point blank range by an older male relative.

Police said at about 10.30 am, Allan Stoute was in a heated argument at his Mt Pleasant Road home with a 61-year-old relative. It was reported that when Stoute grabbed a cutlass, his relative pulled out his licensed firearm and open fire.

Other family members who heard the shot called the police and an ambulance which later took Stoute to the Arima Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Police arrested Stoute's relative and seized his pistol, ammunition and Firearms User's Licence (FUL) documents. One spent shell was also recovered.

When Newsday visited the home, a brother of the victim who asked not to be publicly identified, said this shooting was the culmination of years of aggravation, provocation and arguments meted out to him and his brother by the suspect.

The victim's brother claimed that both he and Stoute were victims of repeated bullying and provocation by the older relative who is a businessman and a hunter. The brother said that he and Stoute had regular disputes with the suspect but added that he is still shocked that it came to a deadly end.

"He (the detained relative) wasn't a nice man from day one, eh, but we bear with him because he helped us build this house. He financed the house, so he used to say it was his own. All of this really happened because of greed," Stoute's brother said.

"He tried to put all of us out of the house. I couldn't take it no more and moved out and began renting on my own. But my brother remained and he and (name called) kept falling out over the same thing. He kept telling my brother to 'Get out of my place.' There is a history of bacchanal, but family is not supposed to kill family. He (the relative) is a hunter so he knows how to use a firearm."

The brother pleaded on the police to carry out more stringent background checks on people applying for gun licences, adding that had the police interviewed other relatives during their background checks, his relative would not have been granted the FUL.

"Not just because you have a company that means the police must give you a licence just so. You need to investigate better, check into their home life and find out if people are mentally capable of having a gun."

"They are saying he (the suspect) was attacked by my brother, but we won't know until the police investigate. I can't tell you what happened but what I can say is that a gun given by the police to a man to protect his business was used in a domestic dispute."

He said Stoute worked as a tradesman at the Water and Sewerage Authority's (WASA) Tacarigua station and would remember him as a loving, caring father to his children.

Newsday spoke to two neighbours who corroborated the brother's claims saying that they were accustomed to hearing arguments coming from the house, but that it was usually between Stoute's common-law wife and the relative who is in custody.

As part of their investigations, police have seized the hard drive of a computer linked to CCTV cameras at the house to hopefully get a clearer picture of what happened. Detectives from the Homicide Bureau of Investigations (Region II) are continuing enquiries.