Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

While they agree that the Gov­ern­ment has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in cre­at­ing a safer na­tion, the rel­a­tives of mur­dered school­boy Zwade Al­leyne say the work of the au­thor­i­ties must be sup­port­ed by fam­i­lies.

Al­leyne, 17, was shot as he stood in the door­way of his Build­ing 12, Mal­oney, home on May 10.

He died five days lat­er at hos­pi­tal.

Dur­ing her fea­ture ad­dress at her swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny on May 1, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar promised that she would work to­wards cre­at­ing a safer T&T with­in six months.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, on Mon­day, one of Al­leyne’s aunts said while she was hope­ful the Gov­ern­ment would keep it’s promise, par­ents need­ed to in­stil the right val­ues in their chil­dren.

She lament­ed that way­ward chil­dren were some­times en­cour­aged by par­ents which led to more wide­spread prob­lems lat­er on.

“The gov­ern­ment alone can’t make this hap­pen,” she said.

“The par­ents and the com­mu­ni­ty has to step it.

“There isn’t any broth­er’s keep­er any­more. I grew up the old school way. I grew up where I have to tell my neigh­bour good morn­ing, but now par­ents train­ing their chil­dren to be dis­re­spect­ful, so the gov­ern­ment will try but they alone can’t do it.”

Asked what she or oth­er rel­a­tives would say to Al­leyne’s killers di­rect­ly, the woman sim­ply said, “To God be the glo­ry for them.”

She said Al­leyne who rep­re­sent­ed his school Ari­ma North Sec­ondary on their foot­ball team was work­ing close­ly with a foot­ball club in Mal­oney to as­sist him in earn­ing a schol­ar­ship to be­gin play­ing abroad.

To date no one has been ar­rest­ed for Al­leyne’s mur­der, but po­lice said ini­tial in­for­ma­tion did not sug­gest he was the in­tend­ed tar­get of the gun­man.

On May 12—two days af­ter Al­leyne was shot—a 38-year-old woman was in the bath­room of her Build­ing 15, home when she was shot in her face by a stray bul­let.

Neigh­bours took her to hos­pi­tal where she was ward­ed in sta­ble con­di­tion.

North­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice said the shoot­ings may be a re­sult of a gang war be­tween cliques of crim­i­nals in dif­fer­ent build­ings.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment act ASP Op­er­a­tions for the North­ern Di­vi­sion Ish­mael Pitt said since both in­ci­dents, there had been a height­ened po­lice pres­ence in and around Mal­oney.

“We have added per­son­nel to in­crease the pres­ence on the ground in Mal­oney,” Pitt said.

“We have al­so en­gaged our com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing team to get in there and have an un­der­stand­ing of some of the is­sues which may es­cape us from a tra­di­tion­al polic­ing lens, so we can have a full un­der­stand­ing of what is hap­pen­ing.

“As much as the po­lice pres­ence may deal with is­sues of re­duc­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties (for crime), we want to un­der­stand the core is­sues so we can ad­dress the core is­sues with the cor­rect dosage of polic­ing.”

Re­gion II Homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors are con­tin­u­ing en­quiries in­to Al­leyne’s mur­der.