Trinidad mother begs for police protection

Police at the scene of the murder of coconut vendor Keith Clement on Damarie Hill Road, Sangre Grande in December.

 (Trinidad Guardian) Eight days af­ter her son was shot dead near his San­gre Grande home, Ann Marie Stephen says she is now be­ing tar­get­ed by gang mem­bers in her com­mu­ni­ty and is ap­peal­ing to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith for im­me­di­ate pro­tec­tion.

Stephen, 53, a moth­er of eight, said she had re­port­ed the in­ci­dent to the Tu­na­puna Po­lice Sta­tion. She came to Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day seek­ing help.

The threat came days af­ter her 23-year-old son Kei­th Clement, a co­conut ven­dor, was killed on De­cem­ber 27.

Stephen said Kei­th was her third child to have died un­der trag­ic cir­cum­stances. Her daugh­ter, Mar­i­on Clarke, 16, died in an ac­ci­dent in To­ba­go a few years ago and in 2017, her 34-year-old son Bren­don Stephen was shot dead.

She de­nied Clement was in­volved in any il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty al­though she ad­mit­ted he smoked mar­i­jua­na and was fre­quent­ly on the block.

“I am ap­peal­ing to Grif­fith to in­ves­ti­gate Kei­th’s death, please. I need jus­tice for my son’s mur­der. I am not go­ing to rest un­til I see his killers get pun­ished. I want Grif­fith to clean up Damarie Hill and put away these gang mem­bers who have the place un­safe,” she said.

Stephen said her son was a vic­tim of an on­go­ing war in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“It’s war­fare from long time. My big son, Bren­don, and them used to be in war,” she said.

Stephen said she was threat­ened last Fri­day as she walked from her home by a man who “start­ed shout­ing that he would kill me.”

She re­called: “I start­ed to run but fell and in­jured my left hip. As he got clos­er, I be­gan scream­ing and peo­ple came out, caus­ing him to go in an­oth­er di­rec­tion. That is how I got away. Stephen said.

Asked if she is liv­ing in fear, Stephen: “I not fear­ful of dy­ing be­cause I have no co­coa in the sun. I have noth­ing to hide. They done killed two of my sons and is not strangers who do it. Why these fel­las killing peo­ple and they out­side walk­ing free? Some­thing is not right.”

No one has been ar­rest­ed for Clement’s mur­der.