Sascha Wil­son

"Hang them high," moaned Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit (Sautt) mem­ber Phillip Abra­ham yes­ter­day, af­ter his 20-year-old daugh­ter, Pe­tra Abra­ham, was gunned down while flee­ing from rob­bers on Tues­day night.

Over­come with grief, the an­guished fa­ther sobbed: "Hang them high... that is the on­ly way to stop crime in this coun­try." Pe­tra Abra­ham, al­so the niece of Supt David Abra­ham, head of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions (South), was shot once when she at­tempt­ed to run dur­ing a rob­bery at Ming's Restau­rant and Bar on Leo­taud Street, San Fer­nan­do.

The bul­let en­tered her back and ex­it­ed through her chest. Pe­tra, who was pur­su­ing a bach­e­lor of sci­ence de­gree at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT), died while un­der­go­ing emer­gency treat­ment at San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. Pe­tra had gone to the bar with friends af­ter net­ball prac­tice in Co­coyea. Re­ports said that around 9.40 pm, they were sit­ting on a ta­ble out­side the bar when two men, one armed with a gun, an­nounced a hold-up. Re­ports said when she thought the men were not look­ing, Pe­tra made a run for it. How­ev­er, she was shot about ten feet away and col­lapsed near a wall. The rob­bers ran off with­out tak­ing any­thing.

De­scribed as a mul­ti-tal­ent­ed young woman in­volved in sports, mod­el­ling, the per­form­ing arts and char­i­ta­ble work, Pe­tra's friends and rel­a­tives were in shock at her Lon­don Ave, Re­form Vil­lage, Gas­par­il­lo, home yes­ter­day. On the brink of tears, Abra­ham said Pe­tra won a schol­ar­ship and was pur­su­ing a de­gree in ed­u­ca­tion to ful­fil her dream of be­com­ing a teacher. Re­call­ing his last con­ver­sa­tion with her, Abra­ham said around 9 pm he had a "pep" talk with her. "When she have prac­tice I would nor­mal­ly call her to find out how it went... She said she was on her way home and we had a lil pep talk," he said. About 45 min­utes lat­er, when he called her again, some­one told him she had been shot. When he ar­rived at the hos­pi­tal, Abra­ham said, she was al­ready dead.

Man­ag­ing to flash a smile, he said his daugh­ter was al­ways jol­ly and had as­pi­ra­tions of be­com­ing a teacher. He said her moth­er, Pamela, and old­er sis­ter Can­dice, a Coast Guard of­fi­cer as­signed to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, went to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre to wit­ness the au­top­sy. Al­most in tears, Bev­er­ly Prescott, man­ag­er of Daniel's Den of Fash­ion, re­called that Pe­tra was among her first batch of mod­els in 2008. De­scrib­ing her as a daugh­ter, she said: "Pe­tra could sing... you name it, she could do it." Mean­while the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion's Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices pro­vid­ed coun­sel­lors to her school­mates at the UTT Corinth cam­pus. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said ar­rests were im­mi­nent. San Fer­nan­do de­tec­tives are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.

Robbed more than ten times

Bar own­er Kai Ming Lau said the crime sit­u­a­tion was out of con­trol.

Re­call­ing that he was robbed more than ten times in the past, the busi­ness­man said it was the first time that some­one was killed. "I will be clos­ing ear­ly, about 8 pm... It too dan­ger­ous," he said. Lau said he re­mem­bered see­ing Pe­tra Abra­ham and her friends at the bar. He said they had or­dered some drinks and chick­en. Lau said when he went in­to the kitchen to eat some­thing, he heard a gun­shot. "The girls and them were bawl­ing," he re­called. Afraid to come out, Lau said he im­me­di­ate­ly called the po­lice who ar­rived soon af­ter. He said when he came out, he saw Pe­tra ly­ing un­con­scious on the ground. He ex­pressed con­do­lences to the be­reaved fam­i­ly.