Man's body found on Old Grange Road

TOBAGO police are investigating the death of a man whose body was found at Old Grange Road on Friday.

The man, Akinde Bissoon, 29, was said to be originally from Buccoo but lived in Sou Sou Lands.

Supt Rodhill Kirk, who visited the scene, told reporters police received an anonymous phone call about the body around 8 am and quickly responded, along with Homicide Bureau investigators and officers from other units.

DMO Dr Kumar viewed the body and ordered it removed to the mortuary of the Scarborough Hospital.

Kirk said the body, clad in dark clothing, bore marks of violence but declined to say if Bissoon was known to police.

“That is not something I would like to comment on at this time. As soon as things become clearer we will give that information.”

Nor could he say whether the victim was killed at Old Grange Road or dumped there.

Kirk, who was accompanied by Insp Alicia Piggott and other senior officers, said the death has been classified as a homicide.

“Homicide is the killing of a human being apparently by a human being. Murder is killing with malice and forethought.”

A source told Newsday Bissoon, a former Signal Hill Secondary School student, was regarded as a pest in his community and surrounding areas.

“He was the only child for his mother and lived a fast life,” the source said.

Bissoon’s body was discovered the day after PNM senator Laurence Hislop pleaded for an end to gun violence in Tobago.

“I want to make a call to the young people of the island of Tobago, the young men primarily, that the gun life and the bad-boy life leads only two place – is either you end up in jail, or you end up down in Buccoo, Bacolet, Plymouth or one of the public cemeteries across Tobago, or cremated, because we now have that service available.

"So it is up to you whether that is where you want to end up.” He spoke on Thursday at a PNM Tobago Council news conference at the party’s Scarborough headquarters.

Hislop urged those involved in criminal activities to “reconsider the direction you are going.

“This cannot be what your parents want for you. This cannot be what the island of Tobago wants for you.

"Reconsider the direction you are going. That gun life is not what it is about.”

He said the Tobago Council supported the efforts of the police on the island, but urged them to ramp up their efforts.

“There has to be a level of understanding from the population that if some of the efforts mean greater stop-and-search, greater roadblocks within our communities, that we don’t see it as the island becoming a police state. But we want to see it from the perspective that the police service is doing their function to assist in curbing what we all see as a scourge on our island.”

Hislop, who is also the Tobago Council’s PRO, also called on the THA to do more to prevent crime and violence in communities.

“So we are calling on the powers that be to do all that is within their power, within their remit, as they know they have significant responsibility and significant power to treat with these matters from that perspective.”

Tobago's first murder for 2024, on New Year’s Day, was the shooting of dancehall artiste Kareem Small in Patience Hill. The island recorded 14 murders in 2023.