An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Ri­car­do Levi Criss was not af­fil­i­at­ed with any gang.

And while he was un­fair­ly la­belled due to where he lived, rel­a­tives said yes­ter­day it was his love for his cousin, Damien Aaron Criss, that led to his un­time­ly death.

Criss, 31, was dri­ving the car which was trans­port­ing Trini­bad artiste Kashif “Kman 6ixx” Sankar and his en­tourage from the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port on Wednes­day, when gun­men am­bushed them and opened fire on them, killing three and wound­ing one.

Sankar, who was the in­tend­ed tar­get, es­caped un­harmed.

The Criss boys, along with friend Jer­ry Hollingsworth; and Bassie Street res­i­dent Lana Sa­hadeo, who was hit by a stray bul­let, were among the dead when the gun­fire ceased.

Trem­bling from grief and shock as she spoke with re­porters at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day, a dis­traught fe­male rel­a­tive begged peo­ple to stop pub­lish­ing claims that Levi was a gun­man or a gang mem­ber.

“He was just the dri­ver,” she in­sist­ed.

Levi’s fam­i­ly said he was em­ployed as an op­er­a­tor at Na­tion­al Flour Mills and he ac­cept­ed the pri­vate hire job to col­lect his cousin and Sankar’s ar­riv­ing par­ty on Wednes­day, al­though he was due to re­port for work.

An­oth­er woman con­firmed he told them he would be back soon, be­fore leav­ing his home at An­nisette Street, Clifton Hill, Port-of-Spain.

One said, “Is not every­body in a sit­u­a­tion bad.”

Re­mem­ber­ing Levi as a, “cool, hard-work­ing and fun per­son,” those present agreed he lived for his chil­dren, aged 12, nine, four and three.

Asked if Levi had ex­pressed fear or had spo­ken of any pre­mo­ni­tions pri­or to the in­ci­dent, they said no.

Rel­a­tives said he had spent an en­joy­able Christ­mas hol­i­day pe­ri­od with the fam­i­ly and had even host­ed a pa­ja­ma par­ty on Box­ing Night.

One rel­a­tive choked up as she strug­gled to get the words out, “Why he didn’t just go to work? Why he take that job? Why he didn’t just go...just go?”

Pulling hard on a cig­a­rette, one of the dis­traught women de­fend­ed Levi’s mem­o­ry, as she said, “Levi ain’t no gun­man.

“The po­lice nev­er one day come by our door...al­lyuh could walk up the road in the area and ask any­body bout Levi...I ain’t telling al­lyuh no lies.

“He nev­er get lock up, he was nev­er in jail...they can’t say noth­ing bout Levi.”

Ac­knowl­edg­ing he was liv­ing in an area off St Paul Street, East Port-of-Spain, which was known for gang ac­tiv­i­ty, she said de­spite this, he spoke to every­one.

“But he nev­er lime with them,” she said.

Beg­ging so­cial me­dia users to stop la­belling the three men killed as gun­men, Levi’s rel­a­tives said that was an un­fair stig­ma be­ing as­cribed to the vic­tims.

Mean­while, it was a calm and col­lect­ed Ri­car­do An­tho­ny Criss who told re­porters, “He just went to pick up Aaron.”

Con­firm­ing his son had run away from work to pick up his cousin and their friends to drop them home, he said, “That was it.”

How­ev­er, he de­clared, “This was a sign of the times as we are liv­ing in the last days. We ex­pect these things.”

The de­vout Je­ho­vah Wit­ness added, “The fact that peo­ple get­ting killed left, right and cen­tre...we ex­pect these things. Je­sus said that is how it will be in the last days.”