While she did not know if he was in­volved in any­thing il­le­gal, a close rel­a­tive of 17-year-old Brent Bap­tiste said she and oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers had warned him re­peat­ed­ly about the com­pa­ny he kept.

Po­lice said Bap­tiste was shot and killed by of­fi­cers from the Port-of-Spain Task Force when he point­ed a gun at them fol­low­ing a car chase that end­ed at Bot­tle Al­ley, off La­dy Young Av­enue, Mor­vant, on Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon.

Three gun­men who were with Bap­tiste at the time of the in­ci­dent es­caped af­ter he was shot while run­ning through near­by bush­es. Po­lice said they found a pis­tol near Bap­tiste’s body.

They said they searched the trunk of the Hon­da City car Bap­tiste was trav­el­ling and found a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na, a white “pow­dery” sub­stance and five spent 5.56 shells.

How­ev­er, one of Bap­tiste’s rel­a­tives, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said she did not know him to be a crim­i­nal. She said he worked at a spice and clove stall at the Tu­na­puna Mar­ket to sup­port him­self and ad­mit­ted she was con­cerned about him drift­ing to­wards a group of young men she did not know.

“I’m not ly­ing he start­ed to lime with peo­ple who are not work­ing peo­ple,” she said.

“I used to ask him, ‘You work­ing and they aren’t work­ing, that is two dif­fer­ent lan­guages you all speak­ing, what could they be telling you to have you so com­fort­able to fit in?’ “He used to say he have his head on his shoul­ders and that he wasn’t stu­pid.”

The rel­a­tive said she no­ticed that af­ter work­ing in the mar­ket Bap­tiste of­ten stopped to lime and speak with friends, some­thing she was con­cerned about. She said this led to her or­gan­is­ing an ap­point­ment for him to ap­ply for his pass­port and US Visa for him to vis­it rel­a­tives abroad and get away from neg­a­tive in­flu­ences in the neigh­bour­hood.

The rel­a­tive added that she did not know who was in the car with Bap­tiste at the time of the shoot­ing, but knew who the own­er of the car was.

“Every­body who came back alive, I nev­er saw their face, I nev­er got a phone call or mes­sage, just word of mouth.

“I know the per­son who own the ve­hi­cle and I haven’t seen the per­son yet, but I know who­ev­er he went with is alive and he (Bap­tiste) is dead, the youngest,” she said.

The rel­a­tive said she rushed to the scene af­ter hear­ing about Bap­tiste’s death to see for her­self but was told to go to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he died.

The rel­a­tive said Bap­tiste at­tend­ed San Juan Boys RC School and the Ser­vol vo­ca­tion­al school in San Juan but left the pro­gramme af­ter a falling out with an­oth­er stu­dent. (SS)