Sascha Wil­son

The fam­i­ly of Cor­po­ral Claude Blake wants a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing how he was shot in the head at the army base in La Ro­main on Tues­day.

Dis­miss­ing any sug­ges­tion that the wound was self-in­flict­ed, the fam­i­ly said the ver­sion of events sug­gest­ing the gun ac­ci­den­tal­ly dis­charged al­so made “no sense.”

Pre­lim­i­nary re­ports stat­ed that around 3.15 pm, his col­leagues at the 2nd In­fantry Bat­tal­ion’s La Ro­main Army Base, along the M2 Ring Road, heard a loud ex­plo­sion. They then found Blake ly­ing on the floor bleed­ing from a head wound with a pis­tol near his body. The army’s medics took Blake to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he died around 4.20 pm.

The med­ical re­port ob­tained by the po­lice at the hos­pi­tal stat­ed: “Pen­e­trat­ing in­jury to the right tem­po­ral area above eye­brow. Large 2x3 cm pen­e­trat­ing in­jury to the left oc­cip­i­tal pari­etal area with brain mat­ter ex­posed.”

In­ves­ti­ga­tors re­trieved the pis­tol, a spent shell and a pro­jec­tile at the scene.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Blake’s broth­er Bri­an said he had 18 years’ ser­vice. He said they were told that the shoot­ing was ac­ci­den­tal. “The ver­sion we got is that he was clean­ing his firearm and shot him­self by ac­ci­dent or some­thing ... that re­al­ly not mak­ing sense.”

He said it made no sense to them be­cause a firearm is usu­al­ly dis­as­sem­bled be­fore it is cleaned.

“You can­not shoot your­self with a firearm that is dis­as­sem­bled,” he said. Bri­an said they are hop­ing a prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion will be con­duct­ed.

“We just hope that the po­lice do their due dili­gence and the facts and the truth of what hap­pened ac­tu­al­ly comes out,” he said.

He al­so dis­missed spec­u­la­tion that Blake com­mit­ted sui­cide.

“My broth­er loved life too much to com­mit sui­cide. He just came back from To­ba­go, hours be­fore he was mes­sag­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers con­cern­ing things that he have to do. That’s not fea­si­ble...Any­one you talk to will de­scribe him as the life of the par­ty.”

He ex­plained that Blake went to To­ba­go with his cousin for Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions and they re­turned on Mon­day. He re­port­ed to work that day. Bri­an said his cousin told them they had a fun time in To­ba­go and when they part­ed ways, Blake was in good spir­its. He said his broth­er liked lim­ing, cars, mu­sic and Christ­mas. Blake, he added, was plan­ning to spend Christ­mas with them.

The el­dest of four sib­lings, Bri­an said his broth­er shared a close bond with their moth­er. Orig­i­nal­ly from Rio Claro, Blake lived in El So­cor­ro, San Juan, and had an 18-year-old daugh­ter.

“Every­body is dis­traught,” lament­ed Bri­an.

“He would not com­mit sui­cide. He would not do that to his fam­i­ly and his moth­er, that is not the kind of in­di­vid­ual he is.”

The au­top­sy has not yet been done.

Sgt Teeluck of the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice is in­ves­ti­gat­ing.