RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Less than a month af­ter he turned 18, Je­re­my John was shot dead near his moth­er’s home in Pe­nal on Sat­ur­day night.

Po­lice said the teenag­er lived at Pleas­antville Av­enue in San Fer­nan­do with his fa­ther Jerome John but while on his way to vis­it his un­cle Mar­tin Mor­ris at Sun­rees Road, gun­men pulled up and opened fire. 

Mor­ris, 52, told po­lice he was watch­ing tele­vi­sion at about 7.40 pm when he heard the gun­shots and took cov­er. Af­ter the gun­fire ceased a neigh­bour told him his nephew had been killed. Po­lice said John was struck six times by the bul­lets. 

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, his moth­er Nicole Mor­ris said he worked as a labour­er with the URP in San Fer­nan­do and had no run-ins with the law. Dur­ing his child­hood, he learnt to walk on stilts with Ju­nior Bis­nath’s Kaisokah School of Arts.

Sob­bing un­con­trol­lably, Mor­ris blamed her­self for John’s death.

“It’s my fault. I called him to come home. I want­ed to see him. If he didn’t come home in Pe­nal, he would not have got shot,” she sobbed.

She ex­plained that on March 10, John cel­e­brat­ed his 18th birth­day and as a gift, she bought a house for him.

“I want­ed him to come and live close to me. He was my first­born and I loved him. I don’t know how I will func­tion with­out him,” she sobbed.

Jeremy John

She ex­plained that af­ter John col­lect­ed his first salary he bought a pair of shoes and gave her $40 to buy snacks for his sib­lings.

She al­so said she was puz­zled about who want­ed him dead.

“Why they didn’t send him home to his moth­er. Why they had to go and kill him?” she cried.

Grand­moth­er Al­ice Joseph had this mes­sage for his killers.

“God will deal with all yuh. Jah will deal with this,” she cried.

Grand­fa­ther Drayston Pierre said he al­so did not know why any­one would want to kill the teenag­er.

“He had no en­e­mies as far as I know. He lived right here. On­ly last year he moved to his fa­ther’s house,” he said. Pierre said there were too many idle youths on the streets.

“Long ago when I was younger, there were many trade schools where youths could pick up train­ing in agri­cul­ture, me­chan­ics, tai­lor­ing, elec­tri­cals, or plumb­ing,” he re­called.

“We nev­er would see a youth man as a va­grant on the street. That was be­cause there were pro­grammes that young peo­ple could en­gage in. It was not dif­fi­cult to find a skill be­cause there were trade schools and craft cours­es to do,” Pierre added.

He called on the gov­ern­ment to re­vi­talise these trade schools and utilise com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres.

“We should en­cour­age such skills trad­ing to con­tin­ue. This is the on­ly way to save the youth,” he said.

Nicole Morris, mother of Jeremy John, is comforted by her relative Alice Joseph at her Lowkey Trace, Penal home. John, 18, was murdered outside his uncle’s home at Sunrees Road, Penal, on Saturday.

Rishi Ragoonath

Lisa Dray­ton, founder of Char­lo Vil­lage Nex Gen­er­a­tion Tal­ent Group, said if youths had ac­cess to pro­grammes to hone their tal­ents, they would be less in­clined to get in­volved in ne­far­i­ous acts. 

Po­lice said they have no mo­tive for John’s mur­der. Six spent shells fired from a 9mm se­mi-au­to­mat­ic pis­tol were re­cov­ered from the scene of the crime.

Sgt Jones, Cpl Bridge­mo­han and PC Jages­sar of Homi­cide Bu­reau vis­it­ed the scene and Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Ma­haraj or­dered the body re­moved to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre where an au­top­sy will be done on Mon­day.

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion on the mur­der can con­tact Crime Stop­pers at 800-TIPS.