ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

As rel­a­tives of Samuel Mc Caine said farewell to him in an emo­tion­al fu­ner­al ser­vice yes­ter­day, they said his vi­o­lent death was a mo­ti­va­tion to be and do bet­ter.

Mc Caine was one of four men gunned down in Black Rock, To­ba­go on Ju­ly 8.

Mc Caine, Anslem Dou­glas, Gre­go­ry Ham­let and Jamo­ki Dun­can were killed af­ter gun­men wear­ing cam­ou­flage uni­forms stormed Dou­glas’ home around mid­night. The men were shot mul­ti­ple times about the body.

Their killings pushed To­ba­go’s mur­der count for 2024 to 16, sur­pass­ing last year’s to­tal of 14.

Po­lice sus­pect Mc Caine was the in­tend­ed tar­get.

Yes­ter­day, rel­a­tives and friends gath­ered at the Nazarene Church in Bethany to pay trib­ute to Mc Caine who they said had turned his life around and had fall­en in love with serv­ing God.

Mc Caine’s rel­a­tives de­scribed him as lov­ing, re­spon­si­ble, am­bi­tious and a car­ing in­di­vid­ual who put his fam­i­ly first.

The 35-year-old was ex­pect­ed to re­turn to his com­mon-law wife in the Unit­ed King­dom in Au­gust.

His rel­a­tives said he was bap­tised in March this year and changed his life.

De­liv­er­ing the eu­lo­gy, his nephew, Je­lani James rem­i­nisced on the times Mc Caine would boast about his skills as a foot­baller in the com­mu­ni­ty. He said his un­cle’s mur­der was a rea­son to stay clear of trou­ble and live a good life.

He said, “His death has in­spired me to push even hard­er, don’t give up un­til the wheels fall off. It taught me that we are not here for­ev­er and to­mor­row is not promised. Don’t die with­out liv­ing and you can’t run from death.

“And when our lord Je­sus Christ calls we can’t say no.

“It in­spired me to re­main hum­ble and stay calm and to stay out of trou­ble.”

“Samuel was a beau­ti­ful soul, a hap­py per­son­al­i­ty and al­ways be­lieved in giv­ing peo­ple sec­ond chances. He al­ways want­ed the best for every­one,” he said.

Al­though po­lice ques­tioned sev­er­al peo­ple in con­nec­tion with the quadru­ple mur­der, there have been no ar­rests or charges laid.

One day af­ter the mur­ders which rocked the is­land, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley met with THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and se­nior law en­force­ment of­fi­cials on ways to tack­le ris­ing crime in To­ba­go.

Dur­ing the talks, of­fi­cials agreed on a new crime plan to deal with the surge in mur­ders and shoot­ings on the is­land, which in­clud­ed po­lice of­fi­cers from Trinidad be­ing sent to To­ba­go in the short term and on a con­stant ro­ta­tion­al ba­sis.