Rishard Khan

Rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

Some San­ta Cruz res­i­dents have laud­ed crick­et leg­end Bri­an Lara for his speak­ing out about the crime sit­u­a­tion in the com­mu­ni­ty and coun­try. How­ev­er, they be­lieve more lo­cal per­son­al­i­ties with such plat­forms need to fol­low suit.

Dur­ing a vis­it to the com­mu­ni­ty yes­ter­day, res­i­dent Steve Gra­ham, who has lived in the com­mu­ni­ty for over 50 years, said a call from such pow­er­ful voic­es could have more of an im­pact with­in the re­spec­tive com­mu­ni­ties than those from gov­ern­men­tal or po­lit­i­cal quar­ters.

“I think more celebri­ties, whether from San­ta Cruz or wher­ev­er, should speak out about it,” he said.

“The au­thor­i­ties have been speak­ing and…there’s cer­tain things that still con­tin­ue to hap­pen or es­ca­lat­ing more. I think if the per­sons who have been in the com­mu­ni­ty and grown up there and rea­son with the peo­ple who they’ve grown up with, it might be a lit­tle more im­pact­ing than a politi­cian that say­ing some­thing wher­ev­er they say­ing it, but they’re not re­al­ly from the com­mu­ni­ty.”

In a state­ment over the week­end, Lara, now on as­sign­ment as a coach in the In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL), spoke out about the es­ca­lat­ing crime in San­ta Cruz and the wider coun­try.

“To­day, I am lay­ing in my room in Jaipur, In­dia, and yes, search­ing for an­swers and so­lu­tions for my team Sun­ris­ers Hy­der­abad in the IPL, but deep down I am hurt­ing as I see my coun­try slow­ly turn­ing in­to a place that’s un­safe for all Trin­bag­o­ni­ans,” he said.

Lara was dri­ven to com­ment fol­low­ing the mur­der of his child­hood friend Bri­an Parouse, who was among three men gunned down at a San­ta Cruz bar last week.

“I was in com­plete shock and dis­may af­ter watch­ing video footage in which a child­hood friend got killed whilst sit­ting watch­ing bas­ket­ball at a lo­cal bar in Can­taro, the once sleepy vil­lage I grew up in. There is more to the video I rather not men­tion, but it pains me to see what was once the most beau­ti­ful vil­lage with co­coa and or­ange es­tates lin­ing its out­skirts, crum­ble un­der the bur­den of crime and re­lent­less vi­o­lence,” he said.

Yes­ter­day, an­oth­er San­ta Cruz res­i­dent, Robert Lara, one of the crick­et leg­end’s rel­a­tives, said he was with the three men who were gunned down at Web­ster’s Bar be­fore their mur­ders last Tues­day. He is hop­ing the world-renowned crick­eter’s words help make a dif­fer­ence in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“He’s one of the fel­las orig­i­nal (from here). We was sup­posed to have a bet­ter com­mu­ni­ty be­cause re­mem­ber, Bra­vo (broth­ers Dwayne and Dar­ren) and them from here, Lara from here. I mean, them is fel­las peo­ple look­ing up to. Why it is it have to be so?” he said.

How­ev­er, for Wes­ley Karim­bo­cas, who lives on the street where the crick­eter grew up, Lara’s state­ments, while well-in­ten­tioned, were a swing and a miss. He said he felt once Lara at­tained his in­ter­na­tion­al fame, he for­got about the com­mu­ni­ty. As such, he said he be­lieves his words need to be fol­lowed by ac­tion.

“I think if he would join that fight (against crime), I think it could make a se­ri­ous dif­fer­ence be­cause of who he is and what he means to San­ta Cruz and if he would take a more ac­tive ap­proach in the af­fairs of San­ta Cruz peo­ple, I think we could get a lot more done here and we could do some­thing about the crime sit­u­a­tion,” he said.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, who did not want to be named, was scep­ti­cal about the call for promi­nent peo­ple to speak out against the crim­i­nal acts.

“You com­ing out and say­ing some­thing—it’s like you just high­light­ing the is­sues but you need to get to the whole core of the prob­lem and deal with it,” she said.

Parouse is now among at least sev­en peo­ple to be killed in San­ta Cruz for the year to date. Al­so killed in the in­ci­dent were Bran­don Charles and Dale Alexan­der. Res­i­dents will hold a can­dle­light vig­il tonight in mem­o­ry of the men and against gun vi­o­lence.

The year kicked off with De­nil­son Kennedy, of Can­taro, be­ing killed while lim­ing out­side his house. This was fol­lowed by the mur­ders of Ja­son Hood, 31, and his friend An­der­son Phillip, 34, dur­ing an am­bushed by gun­men. Mark Ju­man was al­so killed on April 30.