Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

The killing of two-year-old Ani­ah Mc­Cloud over the week­end clear­ly begs the ques­tion about the kind of na­tion Trinidad and To­ba­go has be­come, Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don says.

Gor­don made the com­ment on Sun­day as he was asked his views on the con­tin­u­ing spate of mur­ders in the wake of the killings of young Ani­ah and her fa­ther Stephon McLeod, 40, on Fri­day night in Tu­na­puna. McLeod and his daugh­ter were am­bushed and shot dead around 7.30 pm as they drove along Achong Trace, which is lo­cat­ed off Balt­haz­ar Street in Tu­na­puna.

Yes­ter­day, Gor­don ex­pressed sad­ness to see the in­creas­ing crime rate.

“It’s sad to see the crime rate re­al­ly go right back up. I sup­pose the lock­down had the ef­fect of cool­ing things down a bit but the killing of a two-year-old child is re­al­ly be­yond any­thing that we could un­der­stand in hu­man­i­ty,” the Arch­bish­op said.

“It is be­yond be­lief that some­body could do an act as vi­o­lent as that to an in­no­cent child. It re­al­ly speaks to the pover­ty of our soul and to the pover­ty of our imag­i­na­tion and our na­tion that we can live in our coun­try where these things can hap­pen.”

Gor­don said that it was time, as a coun­try, that we “re­al­ly ask the hard ques­tions about: What kind of a na­tion are we re­al­ly in? What kind of na­tion do we want to be­come? How do we deal with the kind of crimes that we are see­ing?”

Arch­bish­op Gor­don al­so took the time to speak to the crim­i­nal el­e­ments, re­it­er­at­ing to them that “crime does not pay and it does not give you a long life span.”

“You are not go­ing to be able to re­al­ly have a life that makes any sense, to have a pro­duc­tive life, to have a life con­tribut­ing to so­ci­ety, to have a life where what you do on a dai­ly ba­sis makes a so­ci­ety a bet­ter place. That’s what we all do and that’s what every­one should be as­pir­ing too,” Gor­don said.

He added that if one finds them­selves tak­ing away from so­ci­ety, its safe­ty, peace and good­ness, “then I would beg you please re­flect! Think hard about what you are do­ing and make a shift to some­thing pro­duc­tive, where you are mak­ing a con­tri­bu­tion to so­ci­ety and good to so­ci­ety.”

Po­lice prob­ing the killings said yes­ter­day that there were search­ing for at least four sus­pects they be­lieve were re­spon­si­ble for the killings.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said based on in­for­ma­tion they re­ceived, sev­er­al men were seen run­ning out of a car af­ter shoot­ing McLeod and his daugh­ter.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith, on his Face­book page, has al­so ap­pealed to any­one with in­for­ma­tion about the sus­pects to come for­ward. He said these men should be cap­tured swift­ly.

Al­so recog­nis­ing the cel­e­bra­tion of Fa­ther’s Day yes­ter­day, Arch­bish­op Gor­don de­scribed fa­ther­hood as the most “pow­er­ful, beau­ti­ful and amaz­ing gift that any­one can have.”

But in the same breath, he al­so added that fa­ther­hood is a call to sac­ri­fice.

“It’s a call to put the oth­er first be­fore your­self, it’s a call to sanc­ti­fy your day by the love that you have for your chil­dren, your fam­i­ly, your spouse and if we lived fa­ther­hood as it ought to be lived, our whole so­ci­ety will be a much bet­ter and much more pow­er­ful and car­ing so­ci­ety.”