Jensen La Vende

If the crim­i­nals want war with the pro­tec­tive ser­vices they shall have it, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith said yes­ter­day.He made the com­ment in re­sponse to the shoot­ing death of Lance Cpl Kay­o­de Thomas on Sun­day night.Thomas was gunned down by a gang of men who opened fire on his ve­hi­cle in John John, Laven­tille.

In an in­ter­view with i95 FM ear­ly yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said the crim­i­nals would face a war if they in­tend to tar­get mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices with­in their re­spec­tive com­mu­ni­ties.

He said: "I do not in­tend in any way to ac­com­mo­date or to bend over to any crim­i­nal el­e­ment in this coun­try.

"If it is that they want a war they would get one and I would shud­der to think that any crim­i­nal el­e­ment would put God past their thoughts to try to be in­volved in pin-point­ing law en­force­ment of­fi­cers in their com­mu­ni­ty.

"If that is the case, they would be in a war that they would not win."

Con­tact­ed lat­er yes­ter­day, Grif­fith ap­peared more calm, say­ing on­ly that un­til he knows the mo­tive be­hind the killing he would not be mak­ing any more com­ments.

The is­sue of war be­tween crim­i­nals and mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices was al­so raised by Thomas's rel­a­tives at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day

."With the on­go­ing war they just killing peo­ple. The gang­sters lived up to their word. They de­clared war on po­lice and sol­diers. Why Kay­o­de had­da pay the cake?" rel­a­tives ques­tioned.

Thomas was the sec­ond sol­dier who fell vic­tim to the on­go­ing at­tacks by crim­i­nal el­e­ments in the com­mu­ni­ty. On June 21, Cpl Dane Williams was shot in the knee in the Laven­tille area. He was treat­ed and dis­charged the fol­low­ing day.

Yes­ter­day, Thomas's rel­a­tives, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, re­called the threat made by Ker­win Ro­driguez, whose broth­er, Kishawn Daniel, was killed by po­lice on June 21.

That day, Ro­driguez said while the po­lice had to sign out for their weapons, res­i­dents of the Laven­tille com­mu­ni­ty did not have to and po­lice would feel it. Two days lat­er he apol­o­gised and asked for for­give­ness, say­ing he was over­whelmed with grief when he made the threat.

Ro­driguez's state­ment in­censed In­sp Roger Alexan­der who, in in­ter­views with the me­dia, said he saw the com­ment as a threat and a sign of war against his col­leagues, adding he was pre­pared to go to war if that was what was need­ed.Alexan­der was heav­i­ly crit­i­cised for his re­sponse and dur­ing last week's po­lice press brief­ing, act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams sub­se­quent­ly said his men were not at war with the Laven­tille com­mu­ni­ty.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day and told of Thomas's rel­a­tives' ref­er­ence to the threats, Alexan­der laughed, say­ing his com­ments were seem­ing­ly com­ing to pass.He added that every­one thought he was jok­ing then, but now they were piec­ing to­geth­er the whole pic­ture. He added that he "was just wait­ing."

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Williams again asked why the is­sue of war with Laven­tille was be­ing fu­elled by the me­dia.

"I am not in this war. Is on­ly war, war, war. We should be en­cour­ag­ing peace and love and uni­ty," Williams said, adding it was not a com­fort­ing thing to hear about war.

30 bul­lets fired at car

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, around 11.30 pm on Sun­day, Thomas was dri­ving along Plai­sance Quar­ry Road, John John, when a group of men stepped in front his Maz­da 323 and opened fire. Thomas, who was head­ing to the Bev­er­ly Hills home of his moth­er, Mar­va, ran off the road and crashed. He died at the scene.

Po­lice re­cov­ered 30 spent shells at the scene of the shoot­ing. Mem­bers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the T&T Reg­i­ment said Thomas was a mem­ber of the army for the past nine years and was at­tached to the In­fantry Bat­tal­ion as a ri­fle sol­dier. He was the fa­ther of eight chil­dren, with the youngest be­ing two weeks old.

Rel­a­tives said Thomas was a fun-lov­ing man who danced every chance he got. They said they did not want any­one to use his death to gain po­lit­i­cal mileage and asked the me­dia to in­form Mar­lene Mc Don­ald, MP for Port-of-Spain South, not to vis­it their home.

The rel­a­tives said Laven­tille was not a bad place but was be­ing giv­en a bad name by a few crim­i­nals.