An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Jas­sani Reyes was un­able to con­tain him­self as he strug­gled to bid his younger sib­ling Jay­den good­bye yes­ter­day.

Wail­ing as Jay­den’s cas­ket was wheeled to the al­tar of the St Mar­tin De­Por­res RC Church, Gon­za­les, Bel­mont, Jas­sani’s fa­ther An­cil and oth­er rel­a­tives had to phys­i­cal­ly sub­due the sol­dier when he at­tempt­ed to stand up, as she was still nurs­ing in­juries from the mass shoot­ing in­ci­dent that claimed his broth­er’s life.

Jay­den Reyes, 21, was one of four peo­ple who lost their lives fol­low­ing a shoot­ing that be­gan in Gon­za­les and end­ed in a blood­bath at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (PoS­GH) on the night of June 2.

The oth­er vic­tims in­clud­ed Ab­dul Williams, 31; Kevin King, 30; and Jonathon Ar­joon, 28 – all of Gon­za­les, Bel­mont.

Jas­sani was shot in the right side of the face dur­ing the ef­fort to get the in­jured men in­to the hos­pi­tal fol­low­ing the dri­ve-by shoot­ing, which saw gun­men dri­ving on­to the com­pound of the PoS­GH to en­sure the job had been com­plet­ed.

Cra­dled by rel­a­tives who care­ful­ly mopped his brow and wiped his tears, Jas­sani’s heart-felt cries were heard by those who filled the church and those who stood in the rain out­side and lined the streets to pay their re­spects.

De­liv­er­ing the eu­lo­gy, Can­dis James-Mar­shall called on the con­gre­ga­tion to re­mem­ber the as­pir­ing pae­di­atric sur­geon as the re­mark­able young man he was.

“His lega­cy, marked by the lives he touched and the pos­i­tive changes he in­spired, stands as a tes­ta­ment to the fact that the du­ra­tion of one’s ex­is­tence is less sig­nif­i­cant than the depth of the in­flu­ence,” she said.

She said Jay­den’s sto­ry was a poignant in­di­ca­tion that “every mo­ment holds the re­minder for last­ing sig­nif­i­cance, en­cour­ag­ing us all to live with pur­pose and in­ten­tion.”

Re­call­ing his strength of char­ac­ter and de­ter­mi­na­tion, James-Mar­shall said in ad­di­tion to pur­su­ing ta­ble ten­nis and steel­pan, he suc­cess­ful­ly man­aged to play foot­ball at the school and club lev­els whilst main­tain­ing steady grades.

“Wher­ev­er there was foot­ball, there was Jay­den,” she said.

Many present were re­mind­ed that the four vic­tims had just con­clud­ed a neigh­bour­hood foot­ball match be­fore the shoot­ing oc­curred.

She al­so re­called Jay­den’s need to give back to his com­mu­ni­ty and the less for­tu­nate, not­ing he was in­volved in nu­mer­ous vol­un­teer projects in Bel­mont and en­vi­rons.

“He was nev­er, ever in­volved in any il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ty. ... It is of ab­solute im­por­tance that we un­der­stand that Jay­den was al­so a prod­uct of the good that still ex­ists right here in the com­mu­ni­ty of Gon­za­les.”

She ad­mit­ted while this good was some­times over­shad­owed by the bad, the com­mu­ni­ty of Gon­za­les and en­vi­rons still had a lot of pos­i­tive to of­fer the coun­try.

Un­will­ing to fo­cus too much on the ills that con­tributed to the trag­ic deaths but un­able to ig­nore it, James-Mar­shall said T&T was a small coun­try which con­tin­ues to be plagued by vi­o­lence, a lack of re­spect for the law and au­thor­i­ty, a lack of re­spect for life, and a lack of re­spect and fear of God.

“There seems to be no end in sight. Things seem to be get­ting worse,” she said.

She called on cit­i­zens to take back the coun­try, “not by pick­ing up arms and am­mu­ni­tion, but sim­ply by an­swer­ing the call.”

Urg­ing the con­gre­ga­tion not to “har­bour”, “fa­cil­i­tate” or “li­onise” the crim­i­nal el­e­ments who are hell­bent on de­stroy­ing our com­mu­ni­ties the coun­try,” she said, “They thrive on the pow­er that we give them. The sim­ple ac­tion of shar­ing their mis­giv­ings on so­cial me­dia gives them a voice and in so do­ing, ex­po­sure, that they use to re­cruit and poi­son our youth.”

Re­fer­ring to the re­cent videos of gang­sters high­light­ed by YouTu­ber Chris Must List, she said, “In my view, we are help­ing them to so­lic­it our al­ready at-risk youth. ... Let’s start our own list...a list of achiev­ers and pos­i­tive in­flu­encers with­in our com­mu­ni­ties.”

Child­hood friend Jilin Samuel said Jay­den act­ed as a broth­er, men­tor and ther­a­pist to so many of them.

“He was a kind soul who did not de­serve this,” he cried.

Strug­gling not to break down as he stood sur­round­ed by Jay­den’s girl­friend Abiel Pe­dro and oth­er friends, he said, “Jay­den nev­er went in a bad di­rec­tion in his life.”

In the homi­ly, Fa­ther Matthew D’here­aux said the Reyes clan had brought up their sons to be God-fear­ing peo­ple.

Fr D’here­aux said just like fam­i­lies, “Gon­za­les and east Port-of-Spain would go through ups and downs but we will nev­er go through and we will nev­er be van­quished and we will nev­er be de­feat­ed.”

Call­ing for this coun­try to search its heart, the priest said, “Crime doesn’t hap­pen overnight and this kind of pain doesn’t hap­pen overnight. We can­not re­ward evil.”

He said Jay­den was do­ing his fam­i­ly, com­mu­ni­ty and coun­try proud, and in­stead had been dealt a re­ward he did not de­serve.

Fr D’here­aux said the pain and loss should be enough to en­gi­neer a cul­tur­al change at the lev­el of the par­lia­ment, the church, the com­mu­ni­ty and the fam­i­ly.