An­na-Lisa Paul

Jef­frey Pe­ters was a son, fa­ther, broth­er and hus­band who stood for in­tegri­ty, dis­played loy­al­ty, loved un­con­di­tion­al­ly, pro­tect­ed fierce­ly, spoke hon­est­ly, re­spect­ed oth­ers and was deeply pas­sion­ate about his work, the church and his fam­i­ly.

Hav­ing lost his life as he car­ried out his du­ty to pro­tect the prop­er­ty of oth­ers, Pas­tor Clive Dot­tin on Mon­day lament­ed that a law­less na­tion can­not fight crime. He called on the au­thor­i­ties to do some­thing now.

Pe­ters and his col­league Jer­ry Stu­art died in an am­bush at Pen­ny­wise Plaza, La Ro­main, on Sep­tem­ber 19, af­ter men armed with high-pow­ered ri­fles opened fire on them dur­ing a dead­ly heist.

The of­fi­cers were em­ployed with Al­lied Se­cu­ri­ty Ltd. A third col­league, Pe­o­la Bap­tiste, who was al­so shot in the heist, re­mains hos­pi­talised.

De­liv­er­ing a mes­sage of hope dur­ing Pe­ters’ fu­ner­al at the Mt D’or Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist Church in San Juan, Dot­tin said, “pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty guards are on the list of en­dan­gered species” in T&T.

Ad­dress­ing the packed church, Dot­tin said there were high­ly trained and skilled per­sons teach­ing young and im­pres­sion­able youths to use guns in pur­suit of quick mon­ey and ma­te­r­i­al wealth, who had no re­spect for hu­man life.

Rel­a­tives, friends and col­leagues turned out in num­bers to ho­n­our Pe­ters, stand­ing guard around the cas­ket, which was draped with a blue flag bear­ing the com­pa­ny’s lo­go. His boots and belt were placed atop the cas­ket as a mark of re­spect and ho­n­our.

Say­ing cap­i­tal­ists in T&T have no heart, Dot­tin said pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers are paid low wages and of­ten called on to make sac­ri­fices to pro­tect prop­er­ty be­long­ing to oth­ers.

And with crim­i­nals will­ing to kill any­one, in­clud­ing women and chil­dren, for their own means, Dot­tin said know­ing Pe­ters as he had, Pe­ters would not have died with hate in his heart for the gun­men.

Among the first to pay trib­ute to Pe­ters was Al­lied Se­cu­ri­ty man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Michael Nicholas, who re­called their nev­er-end­ing de­bates about who was the world’s great­est bas­ket­ball play­er.

Say­ing Pe­ters had be­come his fam­i­ly’s pro­tec­tor af­ter they re­lo­cat­ed to T&T, an emo­tion­al Nicholas said, “Pe­te had a pas­sion for his fam­i­ly. He had a pas­sion for the church. A pas­sion for singing. A pas­sion for work. There was noth­ing you could have asked Pe­te to do that he would not do, once it was in his pow­er to give.”

Echo­ing sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments was close friend Car­los Guy, who called for sweep­ing changes across the in­dus­try, as he ap­pealed for Pe­ters’ death not to have been in vain. Dur­ing his brief trib­ute, he prompt­ed a round of ap­plause from the con­gre­ga­tion, as he called out own­ers and op­er­a­tors of pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies.

He said, “I want that this death here, be­fore us, that it would cause us to change our op­er­a­tions. These men, your of­fi­cers, they gave their blood, sweat and tears for the com­pa­ny so you guys could live in your fan­cy homes, in your gat­ed apart­ments, and could dri­ve your lux­u­ry cars and what­ev­er else you do, but I am call­ing on you to­day to rein­vest in your of­fi­cers, in good equip­ment.”

He added, “Buy some ar­moured ve­hi­cles and give them a chance. No one should not be go­ing home to their fam­i­lies.

“We all know things hap­pen, but know­ing Jef­fery as I do, if he was in an ar­moured ve­hi­cle, he wouldn’t be here to­day. Give these guys, give these of­fi­cers a fight­ing chance. Give them prop­er equip­ment.”

Pe­ters’ sib­lings hugged each oth­er at the podi­um as they re­mem­bered their broth­er’s ex­cep­tion­al love for all who knew him.

Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Deryck Richard­son wiped tears as he re­called his last in­ter­ac­tion with Pe­ters on that fate­ful day. Pe­ters was the chair­man of the Al­lied EPA branch.

Richard­son said, “He may no longer be with us, but he can nev­er die. Not the things he stood for. He was straight­for­ward and all he want­ed to do was make a bet­ter day for the peo­ple he rep­re­sent­ed.”

Point­ing to the closed cas­ket, he added, “My friend is ly­ing here, and on that same day we spoke, he called me at 10.53 but I couldn’t take the call. I reached out to him af­ter at 11.23 and the same thing that hap­pened to Jef­fery, is the same thing we were dis­cussing at 11.23 on Sep­tem­ber 19. And now I have to live with this. I have to live with the voice notes.”

Pe­ters was lat­er laid to rest at the Tu­na­puna Pub­lic Ceme­tery.