Over the past 15 years these eyes of mine have been privy to what can best be de­scribed as a very dis­turb­ing trend. As a min­is­ter of re­li­gion, one of my du­ties is the in­ter­ment of the dead. This usu­al­ly takes the form of a cre­ma­tion at a cre­ma­to­ri­um or as a bur­ial in one of the many pub­lic ceme­ter­ies through­out T&T. When a no­to­ri­ous gang­ster is slain in this coun­try, he is usu­al­ly for­got­ten as mem­bers of the pub­lic re­joice that the on­ly good gang­ster is a dead one. But what we for­get is that these gang­sters have fel­low gang­ster friends and fam­i­ly mem­bers who at­tend their fu­ner­als en masse, re­sult­ing in what can on­ly be de­scribed as to­tal may­hem, mass hys­te­ria, and wild un­con­trol­lable be­hav­iour in the hal­lowed grounds of the ceme­tery.

At the bur­ial site the scene is one of loud brava­do and car­tel mu­sic blar­ing from speak­ers mount­ed in pimped-out rides, in­ces­sant flow­ing and con­sump­tion of al­co­hol, mar­i­jua­na smok­ing, loud curs­ing and swear­ing of re­venge on the po­lice and ri­val gang­sters who de­prived them of the com­pa­ny of their slain "homie." It is ex­treme­ly un­fair to oth­er griev­ing mourn­ers who must stand by help­less­ly and watch as these el­e­ments lit­er­al­ly take over the ceme­tery with their non­sense. Mourn­ers from oth­er fu­ner­als are al­so put at risk since these gang­sters nev­er go any­where with­out "pack­ing heat" (wear­ing guns) around their waists. These gang­ster fu­ner­als are a haven for crim­i­nals (want­ed and un­want­ed), usu­al sus­pects, and men for whom there are out­stand­ing war­rants.

Maybe the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties should take a page out of the books of the FBI, CIA, and ATF in the US. What they do is as­sign spe­cial agents to at­tend the fu­ner­als of no­to­ri­ous gang­sters. They do so armed with sev­er­al out­stand­ing war­rants as the idea is to nab sus­pects who may have been elud­ing cap­ture but who feel so drawn to mourn the loss of their boss that they show up at the fu­ner­al to­tal­ly un­aware they are be­ing mon­i­tored by un­der­cov­er agents. As they are in the midst of pay­ing their last "dis­re­spects" to their slain "homies," the of­fi­cers pounce on them and cart them away for pro­cess­ing, thus ef­fec­tive­ly re­plac­ing one type of grief with an­oth­er.

Dave Mcken­zie

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