Trinidad: Young singer, friend fatally stabbed in gas station feud
(Trinidad Guardian) Four days after he released his latest positive Vybz song for T&T, What We Need, Kelon “Don Kelon” Cruickshank, 31, died along with his friend, Chris Ragbir after an altercation at the NP Montrose Service Station in Chaguanas on Sunday night, in which both of them were stabbed several times in the head and neck.
Cruickshank was the brother of the late soca artiste Troydon “Blazer Dan” Cruickshank, who was also killed at the age of 31, some eight years ago on October 22, 2010. Blazer Dan was liming in the yard at his home in Enterprise with friends when three gunmen ran out from a nearby track and opened fire, shooting him in the face.
Just like Blazer Dan’s murder, relatives yesterday lamented that “another good soul was suddenly taken away from them”, and they are demanding justice.
In the midst of their calls for justice, investigating officers arrested the gas station forecourt attendant, a 27-year-old Jamaican national, in connection with the incident.
According to a police report, at about 8.30 pm on Sunday, Ragbir and Cruickshank were at the service station when an argument broke out with the attendant.
Police said both men walked away and got into their car when the suspect jumped in the back seat of the vehicle and began stabbing both men in the neck and upper chest.
Cruickshank, police said, attempted to drive away along the Old Southern Main Road but crashed the car.
Police officers who responded found both men covered in blood in the vehicle. They were taken to the Chaguanas District Health Facility where Ragbir was pronounced dead. Cruickshank was transferred to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex where he died while undergoing medical treatment.
Autopsy results showed that both men died from massive haemorrhaging and shock consistent with stabbing to the neck and chest. The autopsy was done at the Forensic Science Centre in St James.
Speaking with the T&T Guardian yesterday, a relative of Cruickshank, who did not want to be identified, called on the police and immigration officers to “seriously” crack down on illegal immigrants.
The murder toll now stands at 447 for the year so far.