Rhon­dor Dowlat

Se­nior re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

Carlsen Field res­i­dents and oth­er con­cerned cit­i­zens gath­ered in large num­bers on Fri­day to ho­n­our the mem­o­ry of Christo­pher Chris­t­ian, a beloved com­mu­ni­ty mem­ber trag­i­cal­ly mur­dered on Ju­ly 8.

The com­mu­ni­ty lined the streets af­ter dark, light­ing can­dles and of­fer­ing prayers for Chris­t­ian’s fa­ther, Matthew, 66, who re­mains in crit­i­cal con­di­tion at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex af­ter be­ing shot three times dur­ing the same at­tack.

Chris­t­ian, de­scribed as a stel­lar youth de­vot­ed to his faith and re­spect­ed by all, was killed while de­fend­ing his fa­ther from four armed, masked as­sailants who broke in­to their home on Con­nec­tor Road.

The ban­dits at­tacked the fam­i­ly around 5:45 am, lead­ing to a strug­gle that re­sult­ed in Chris­t­ian’s death and se­vere in­juries to his fa­ther. Matthew Chris­t­ian was ini­tial­ly treat­ed at the Ch­agua­nas Health Fa­cil­i­ty be­fore be­ing trans­ferred for fur­ther care.

The com­mu­ni­ty’s vig­il al­so served as a call for jus­tice and high­light­ed the need for im­proved se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures in Carlsen Field, which has been plagued by ris­ing home in­va­sions and rob­beries.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions on­go­ing, no sus­pects iden­ti­fied

Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Garvin Si­mon con­firmed that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mur­der is on­go­ing, with no sus­pects iden­ti­fied. He as­sured res­i­dents of fre­quent po­lice pa­trols and said ef­forts are be­ing made to re­store safe­ty in the com­mu­ni­ty, in­clud­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of neigh­bour­hood watch groups and the use of What­sApp for alerts.

Chris­t­ian is yet to be buried as fam­i­ly mem­bers would like his fa­ther to be present for the fi­nal rites.

In re­sponse to the re­cent surge in vi­o­lence, in­clud­ing the mur­der of Christo­pher Chris­t­ian, Ca­roni Cen­tral MP Arnold Ram has called for bet­ter and eas­i­er ac­cess to firearm users’ li­cences for farm­ers and fish­er­men.

In a state­ment, Ram em­pha­sised the need for pro­tec­tion in light of the Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to en­sure na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and cit­i­zen safe­ty. Ram’s state­ment was sup­port­ed by Cou­va North MP Ravi Rati­ram.

Ram stressed the im­por­tance of pro­vid­ing es­sen­tial needs for the agri­cul­ture sec­tor to thrive. He high­light­ed the un­prece­dent­ed lev­els of vi­o­lence and the re­sult­ing fear among com­mu­ni­ties, urg­ing strong pol­i­cy ac­tion to pre­vent fur­ther de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of safe­ty and com­mu­ni­ty co­he­sion.

Res­i­dents are en­cour­aged to con­tact Crime Stop­pers di­rec­tor Dar­rin Carmichael at 312-2281 for as­sis­tance in en­hanc­ing com­mu­ni­ty se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures. Carmichael has ex­pressed will­ing­ness to as­sist in re­vamp­ing neigh­bour­hood watch groups and not­ed that mon­e­tary in­cen­tives for in­for­ma­tion are pro­vid­ed when deemed nec­es­sary by in­ves­ti­ga­tors.