Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

The Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty was plunged in­to mourn­ing fol­low­ing the death of their “leader, Cedric “Burkie” Burke, who died not by the hands of crim­i­nal el­e­ments but COVID-19.

Burke’s death was one in sev­en that oc­curred with­in a 24-hour pe­ri­od from Thurs­day to yes­ter­day. Burke was the fa­ther of 17 by sev­en women, ten of whom are boys.

News of his death trav­elled fast over so­cial me­dia and among Sea Lots res­i­dents.

One close friend of Burke, who wished not to be named, told the Guardian Me­dia his death came “sus­pi­cious­ly un­ex­pect­ed and as a shock­er with many ques­tions.”

“His chil­dren, es­pe­cial­ly two of his sons, are so dis­traught that they have many ques­tions. We spoke to Burkie this morn­ing (Fri­day) and every­thing was good, he was OK and now sud­den­ly, af­ter lunch, they said his health turned for the worst and that he had died but with this COVID-19 death now we wouldn’t get no proof…we would not even get his body be­cause his body would have to be dis­posed of by the State be­cause that is what we be­ing told.”

One of his sons took to In­sta­gram where he post­ed an emo­tion­al 14-sec­ond video say­ing: “I know all yuh kill my fa­ther boy…I know all yuh kill my fa­ther boy…I know all yuh kill my fa­ther boy…No coro­na nev­er kill my fa­ther boy.”

For­mer MP for Port-of-Spain South Mar­lene Mc Don­ald, who was al­so Burke’s friend whom he called “Moth­er,” con­firmed Burke’s death. She said he was a true con­stituent and true pa­tri­ot of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment par­ty.

Told of his rep­u­ta­tion as a re­put­ed gang leader, Mc Don­ald replied: “If he was in­volved in any ne­far­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties I was not aware. It was nev­er brought to me. I nev­er had any prob­lem with my con­stituent then (re­fer­ring to Burke)…he ex­hib­it­ed the true pa­tri­ot of the par­ty. He lost his moth­er two months ago and he had called me to tell me. It is very sad…sad. I am not one to get in­volved in peo­ple’s per­son­al lives.”

In Ju­ly 2017, Mc Don­ald was fired just two days af­ter be­ing ap­point­ed Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter af­ter Burke showed up at her swear­ing-in at Pres­i­dent’s House, St Ann’s. Burke, who was ar­rest­ed in 2011 and charged un­der the an­ti-gang law, was not in­vit­ed to the event and told the me­dia then he had just shown up to sup­port Mc Don­ald. Speak­ing with me­dia im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter she was sworn in, Mc­Don­ald said she in­vit­ed Burke as he rep­re­sent­ed the best that East Port-of-Spain had to of­fer.

Fol­low­ing that in­ci­dent, so­cial me­dia trolls had a field day where they in­sert­ed pic­tures of Burke from that day at the Pres­i­dent’s house in memes. That trend con­tin­ued up to his death yes­ter­day.

Mc Don­ald dis­closed that while every­one was laugh­ing at the memes, Burke of­ten called her to com­plain. “He used to call me and say ‘Moth­er they ain’t stop­ping…they do­ing it again with my pic­ture…I on­ly come be­cause of you, I was so hap­py…It was a try­ing time for me and I prayed and asked for things to go smooth.”

Sea Lots community leader Cedric “Burkie” Burke

Abraham Diaz

She al­so said af­ter she was charged Burke re­mained a loy­al sup­port­er to the PNM be­cause of her.

“I was charged but nev­er con­vict­ed and Mr Burke chat with me at my St James of­fice and I told him that the par­ty is big­ger than all of us, do not let this in­ci­dent push him away and he said to me, ‘Moth­er if was not for you I was out of this par­ty…be­cause of you and your car­ing ways I will stay on’.”

Mc Don­ald said she spoke to Burke’s wife yes­ter­day and ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly. How­ev­er, she said be­cause of her un­der­ly­ing med­ical con­di­tion of Bron­chi­tis she would stay away for a while from the Sea Lots area.

Through­out the past decade, Burke had sev­er­al run-ins with the law and al­so es­caped death at the hand of crim­i­nal el­e­ments sev­er­al times.

On Feb­ru­ary 3, 2019, a man was killed while eight oth­ers were shot and wound­ed in Sea Lots dur­ing a dri­ve-by shoot­ing at Pi­o­neer Dri­ve, Sea Lots. Burke, who was lim­ing among the group, es­caped un­harmed. It was said that in­ci­dent was an at­tempt on his life.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, Burke was al­ways de­scribed as a “big fish” and a per­son of in­ter­est in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties but he was nev­er con­vict­ed.

But Burke, in a pre­vi­ous in­ter­view with the me­dia, de­scribed him­self as a “suc­cess­ful black busi­ness­man who, be­cause of his suc­cess, has gained the en­vy of every­one, even the po­lice.”

Burke owned sev­er­al busi­ness­es, in­clud­ing a con­struc­tion com­pa­ny and a pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty firm.

Youths in the Sea Lots area yes­ter­day as­sured they will car­ry on Burke’s lega­cy by sup­port­ing his sons, who are in­volved in their fa­ther’s con­struc­tion com­pa­ny.

“The boys (re­fer­ring to Burke’s sons) have our loy­al­ty and sup­port. The same we gave their fa­ther, the same we will give to his wife and chil­dren be­cause Burkie treat­ed us re­al good…al­ways gave us mon­ey, gro­cery stuff and jobs so that we can earn a hon­est liv­ing to put food on our own ta­bles for our chil­dren. Burkie will be missed. We will take a long time to get over his death.”