JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Thursday, February 27, 2025

Media photographer dies after hit-and-run: Anthony Harris died a hero says daughter

by

962 days ago
20220710

An­tho­ny Har­ris died a hero.

The 60-year-old was cy­cling around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, in Port-of-Spain, on Sat­ur­day when the dri­ver of a white Nis­san B-13 ploughed in­to him and fled the scene.

Har­ris was flung in­to the air by the im­pact and while he was con­scious at the scene, he died on Sun­day morn­ing at the hos­pi­tal.

The dri­ver is still be­ing sought by po­lice.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Har­ris’ el­der daugh­ter, Charisse said be­fore he died, he called out to his cy­cling com­pan­ions, warn­ing them that the ve­hi­cle was too close.

“He saw the car com­ing, so the oth­er peo­ple he was rid­ing with, he told them to go to the side and when he was pro­ceed­ing to go to the side him­self, the car ploughed straight in­to him, he flew up in­to the air and went back down,” Charisse said.

On Sun­day, she said her fa­ther paid the ul­ti­mate price for that warn­ing.

“He def­i­nite­ly did…he paid with his life,” she said.

De­scrib­ing her fa­ther as her biggest hero, Charisse ap­pealed to the dri­ver to come for­ward so her fam­i­ly can have some sense of jus­tice for her fa­ther’s death.

“I just want the per­son that hit my fa­ther to turn him­self in, so that we could get clo­sure.”

Har­ris was a free­lance pho­tog­ra­ph­er with Guardian Me­dia for many years and was a me­chan­ic by trade.

Charisse said he was al­so the best fa­ther.

“He was the most lov­ing car­ing per­son ever, with the biggest heart…, He was al­ways a phone call away, he would do any­thing for me at any giv­en time, I could call my fa­ther at two o’clock in the morn­ing and he would come, even if he was sleep­ing,” she said.

She said her fam­i­ly and Har­ris’ friends and col­leagues were in shock over his death.

For­mer Guardian Me­dia Sports ed­i­tor Valenti­no Singh said he was not sur­prised to learn that Har­ris had sought to save his friends be­fore be­ing struck by the car.

“He placed val­ue on a lot of things and friend­ship was one of them, if he and a group of peo­ple were in dan­ger, as his daugh­ter is say­ing and he moved to en­sure they were safe and he suf­fered as a re­sult, that doesn’t sur­prise me a bit,” Singh said.

“His stan­dards were his stan­dards, and if you look at it, he died stand­ing up for things that he be­lieved in,” he added.

Singh re­called his in­ter­ac­tions with Har­ris when he be­came a Sports pho­tog­ra­ph­er. He de­scribed Har­ris as the ul­ti­mate pro­fes­sion­al.

“I re­mem­ber hav­ing him come to my of­fice and him out­lin­ing to me what he want­ed to do for us and how much it would cost. I had to go back to my su­pe­ri­ors to get it ap­proved be­cause it was more than the base at that time, but he was not will­ing to budge,” Singh said.

He said Har­ris main­tained the high­est pro­fes­sion­al stan­dards in his work and would nev­er shirk his du­ties.

Singh is now re­tired but his in­ter­ac­tions with Har­ris con­tin­ued over the years. He said he saw Har­ris dai­ly dur­ing his morn­ing walks.

“He would al­ways be with a group of cy­clists very ear­ly in the morn­ing, they would be rid­ing past while I was walk­ing and An­tho­ny would al­ways hail out to me “Valenti­no Singh!” in this big way, in a sense it meant that we nev­er lost touch with each oth­er be­cause I saw him every morn­ing around the Sa­van­nah,” Singh said.

Kei­th Clement, who is the cur­rent Sports Ed­i­tor, echoed Singh’s sen­ti­ments.

He said Har­ris was very straight­for­ward and ded­i­cat­ed to pho­tog­ra­phy.

“He was a very se­ri­ous guy when it came to work, he would not ac­cept any­thing less than his price for a job but on a per­son­al lev­el, he was a great per­son to work with, he would sit down and crack jokes with us,” Clement said.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored