Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter 

jensen.lavende

@guardian.co.tt 

Rel­a­tives of Richard McK­ie say they are pleased to have his name cleared, af­ter his death was of­fi­cial­ly clas­si­fied as a mur­der and not the re­sult of a botched rob­bery.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, a po­lice re­port stat­ed that work­ers at the Sil­ver Fox Mi­ni Mart on Prophe­cy Av­enue, off Tumpuna Road, Ari­ma, were con­front­ed by McK­ie, who de­mand­ed cash. It said McK­ie, who was armed with a gun, stole cash and valu­ables from one work­er but strug­gled with an­oth­er. McK­ie, 39, was shot dur­ing a scuf­fle and ran out of the busi­ness and col­lapsed on the street out­side.

Of­fi­cers of the North­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force were called in and took McK­ie to the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal, where he was de­clared dead short­ly af­ter.

Po­lice told Guardian Me­dia that Dar­rion Lal­la, a 23-year-old from Prophe­cy Av­enue, La Hor­quet­ta, was charged with McK­ie’s mur­der and was due to ap­pear in court yes­ter­day.

At his Gokool Street, Diego Mar­tin home, rel­a­tives said the ac­cu­sa­tion that he was a thief hurt the fam­i­ly, but they were grate­ful the truth was fi­nal­ly out.

Asked how the fam­i­ly dealt with the re­ports that he was a ban­dit, his cousin, Maryam Ra­haman, said they were im­me­di­ate­ly dis­missed.

“We knew that was chupid­ness. We knew it was wrong, so we were an­gry be­cause we know some­thing else had to hap­pen. It could not be that.”

She said rel­a­tives took to so­cial me­dia to de­ny the claims he was a ban­dit.

“The in­for­ma­tion that we have now, we feel a lit­tle bit at peace that some­one has been charged. But at the same time, it can’t re­pay his life. A child is still fa­ther­less, and my aunt is still with­out a son.”

Ra­haman said since the killing, McK­ie’s daugh­ter had ex­hib­it­ed signs of de­pres­sion. She said the fa­ther of one was very shy and was not ca­pa­ble of com­mit­ting armed rob­bery.

While thank­ing the po­lice for their as­sis­tance in solv­ing the mur­der, Ra­haman called on the po­lice to do thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tions be­fore dis­sem­i­nat­ing in­for­ma­tion which could tar­nish some­one’s char­ac­ter.