KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As fam­i­ly and col­leagues of Es­tate Con­sta­bles Jer­ry Stu­art and Jef­frey Pe­ters lit can­dles at the site where ban­dits vi­o­lent­ly took the men’s lives, the Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion (EPA) says se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel are now re­luc­tant to take high risks as­sign­ments.

The group gath­ered out­side the gate of Pen­ny­wise Plaza in La Ro­maine on Sat­ur­day night, re­mem­ber­ing the hor­rif­ic event on Sep­tem­ber 19 when gun­men opened fire on a pick-up truck oc­cu­pied by Stu­art, Pe­ters and Pe­o­la Bap­tiste.

The trio, all em­ploy­ees of Al­lied Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices, were leav­ing the com­pound along La Bel Air Road af­ter pick­ing up cash on Sep­tem­ber 19 when ban­dits shot them and stole mon­ey bags.
There were prayers in mem­o­ry of their fall­en com­rade.

Mourn­ers paid fi­nal re­spects to Stu­art at his fu­ner­al on Fri­day, while Pe­ters go­ing away ser­vice will take place to­day. These men leave be­hind fam­i­lies, in­clud­ing chil­dren.

There were al­so prayers for the con­tin­ued re­cov­ery of Bap­tiste, who sur­vived the or­deal but re­mained hos­pi­talised at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope.

EPA Pres­i­dent Deryck Richard­son said she showed im­prove­ment af­ter she suf­fered a stroke and asked the na­tion to con­tin­ue to pray for her. Bap­tiste’s fam­i­ly was present to of­fer sup­port to those mourn­ing the deaths of Stu­art and Pe­ters.

Richard­son said it was im­por­tant that peo­ple re­mem­ber the tragedy and that every­day es­tate po­lice of­fi­cers go to work, they risk be­ing in the line of fire.

He said there must be some oth­er ben­e­fits to meet the needs of the chil­dren of fall­en of­fi­cers be­sides work­men’s com­pen­sa­tion.

“We want to sym­bol­ise what ex­act­ly hap­pened on the 19th and to en­sure as far as is pos­si­ble that this kind of thing does not go on in the se­cu­ri­ty in­dus­try and our peo­ple are pro­tect­ed, and the fam­i­lies com­pen­sat­ed prop­er­ly,” Richard­son said.
He said that the tragedy was trau­mat­ic for those in the in­dus­try, with some mem­bers break­ing down emo­tion­al­ly dai­ly. He said mem­bers were analysing the risks as­so­ci­at­ed with the job and the re­mu­ner­a­tion they re­ceived more than be­fore.

“Should I give my life and my fam­i­ly’s fu­ture to $18 an hour or $20 an hour? Right now, peo­ple are re­luc­tant to take ad­di­tion­al risks. Some coun­selling has been of­fered, and I think this has to be an on­go­ing sit­u­a­tion with coun­selling be­cause peo­ple are see­ing this (mur­der). Peo­ple have it on their phones.”

Richard­son said there are more risks in the se­cu­ri­ty in­dus­try than in pre­vi­ous years as crim­i­nals use more so­phis­ti­cat­ed, high-pow­ered firearms.
“The mea­sures you used to take and the chances that you could have tak­en be­fore, you can no longer do that. We pe­ti­tioned the Gov­ern­ment, on more than one oc­ca­sion, to con­sid­er our pro­tec­tion, like mak­ing (bul­let­proof) vests more af­ford­able. We have not had suc­cess with it, but we will con­tin­ue be­cause of the kind of fire­pow­er and ve­hi­cles they (crim­i­nals) are us­ing.”