Ro­man Catholic Arch­bish­op Charles Ja­son Gor­don has said that any loss of life to vi­o­lence is un­ac­cept­able, re­flect­ing on re­cent mur­ders in­clud­ing the deaths of 11-month-old Jay­den Sut­ton and his fa­ther, Joseph Sut­ton, in Dun­don­ald Hill, St James, ear­li­er this week.

Fa­ther and son were gunned down in their bed­room on the morn­ing of March 31, when a gun­man fired through a bed­room win­dow. As of Fri­day af­ter­noon, no ar­rests had been made in con­nec­tion with the killings.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia Ltd af­ter the Sta­tions of the Cross pro­ces­sion in east Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day morn­ing, Gor­don stressed that such acts of vi­o­lence are in­tol­er­a­ble and called for a na­tion­al re­sponse to every loss of life.

“One of the tragedies we face is that there are so many mur­ders each year that when it es­ca­lates to a child be­ing a vic­tim, it be­comes a na­tion­al sto­ry. But we should make a na­tion­al out­cry every time a life is lost,” he said. “Every hu­man life has dig­ni­ty, and dig­ni­ty is lost when a life is tak­en.”

Dur­ing the pro­ces­sion, se­nior cler­gy of­fered prayers for par­ents whose chil­dren have been im­pris­oned or lost to vi­o­lent crime.

Guardian Me­dia Ltd al­so spoke with DCP Suzette Mar­tin, in charge of Op­er­a­tions and Gold Com­man­der for the State of Emer­gency (SoE), who ac­knowl­edged that while po­lice can­not pre­vent every crime, com­mu­ni­ty sup­port is crit­i­cal in bring­ing per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice.

“We don’t have of­fi­cers at every point, but if the com­mu­ni­ty reach­es out and pro­vides the in­for­ma­tion we need, we can ad­dress out­stand­ing mat­ters. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing,” Mar­tin said.

Of­fi­cers of the Re­gion I Homi­cide Bu­reau con­tin­ue to in­ves­ti­gate the mur­ders of Joseph and Jay­den Sut­ton.

— Shane Su­perville