Camille McEach­nie

As mur­dered busi­ness­man Don­ald “Son­ny” Parks was laid to rest on Wednes­day at the Scar­bor­ough Methodist Church’s ceme­tery, a call was made to res­cue To­ba­go’s so­ci­ety.

Of­fi­ci­at­ing at the ser­vice, which was packed to ca­pac­i­ty, Rev­erend Philbert S. De­laney said every To­bag­on­ian, es­pe­cial­ly par­ents, must play an im­por­tant role in bring­ing back To­ba­go’s so­ci­ety.

“Too many chil­dren are not ex­posed to the things of God in our home and in our schools, there is no de­vo­tion... I pray that this mur­der will be the turn­ing point,” De­laney said.

Not­ing that no man is an is­land, he called on Chris­tians to re­turn to church and pray for To­ba­go.

“Far too many peo­ple say they are a Chris­t­ian but can­not com­mit as they have no time for God. They are so busy do­ing every­thing else and some­times busy do­ing noth­ing,” he added.

He al­so ad­vised per­sons who ben­e­fit from crime to stop their ac­tions im­me­di­ate­ly.

“It’s very easy for us to talk about young peo­ple ...but un­der­neath are the many per­sons who ben­e­fit from it (crime)...un­der­neath are the busi­ness­es, broth­ers, sis­ters, moth­ers, fa­thers ...un­der­neath are those in gov­ern­ment and those in the church who ben­e­fit from the (youths) be­hav­iours.”

Sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments were ex­pressed Yvette Parks-Phillips, a rel­a­tive of the de­ceased.

“Par­ents, grand­par­ents, un­cles aunts, sis­ters, broth­ers, fam­i­lies, please stop con­don­ing your charges in wrong­do­ing. If you see them go­ing down the wrong path...do not be afraid to chas­tise them when nec­es­sary,” she said.

She said gun-re­lat­ed crimes are new to To­ba­go and steps must be tak­en to stop them from con­tin­u­ing.

“What has gone wrong that our men and women just want easy mon­ey and do not want to work hard for it?” she asked.

“Lis­ten To­ba­go, Son­ny’s death must let us all sit and take no­tice. We must bring To­ba­go to the crime-free is­land it once was.”

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, Parks, 85, a for­mer re­tired po­lice sergeant, was shot dead by a lone gun­man at his Sum­mer Hill, Ply­mouth Road, Scar­bor­ough home around 5.38 pm on March 12. He was the third per­son to be mur­dered in To­ba­go in 2019.

Shauneil Charles, 22, of Old Ground Trace, ap­peared in court charged with the mur­der on March 21.