Camille Clarke

Gen­er­al man­ag­er of Sen­tinel Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices Edgar Hack­ett said slain 59-year-old vet­er­an se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer Bert Clarke was the em­bod­i­ment of love who saved his col­league's life.Clarke was killed dur­ing a rob­bery last week Wednes­day when armed rob­bers made off with an es­ti­mat­ed $17 mil­lion. He was fa­tal­ly shot near the Trinci­ty In­dus­tri­al Es­tate on the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way.

Speak­ing to mourn­ers yes­ter­day at Clarke's fu­ner­al at the Faith As­sem­bly In­ter­na­tion­al, Five Rivers, Arou­ca, Hack­ett, who was emo­tion­al dur­ing his ad­dress, said: "When the at­tack took place, Bert sac­ri­ficed his life."De­scrib­ing what hap­pened in the am­bush, he said: "At first they thought it was an ac­ci­dent and Bert was con­cerned about who crashed in­to him and if any­one was in­jured."But then, Hack­ett said, men with so­phis­ti­cat­ed weapons emp­tied 50 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion at the van.

"The dri­ver cried out to his se­nior of­fi­cer (Clarke), 'ASP, I dead,' and Bert threw him­self on the dri­ver and in the process was shot in the head. The dri­ver said 'supe (Hack­ett), Bertie saved my life," he added.Hack­ett said the dri­ver was con­cerned that Clarke nev­er liked him be­cause "he was al­ways on his case" but af­ter the in­ci­dent that changed.Of his own re­ac­tion, he said: "Af­ter I heard the news I did not want to ac­cept this. Bertie was a per­son every­body be­lieved in."

A for­mer sol­dier and friend of Clarke's, Dod­dridge Jack, de­scribed the rob­bery as a "planned clin­i­cal ex­e­cu­tion. Say prayers that who­ev­er did this will be brought to jus­tice. It is on­ly fair. Vengeance be­longs to God," he added.Eu­lo­gies were giv­en by his chil­dren Suszan­na and Ron­dell Clarke and Ver­nes­sar Ar­i­an­na Cum­mings.They said Clarke was loy­al, coura­geous un­to death and their per­son­al hero.

"He would do any­thing for any­body, even a stranger. These peo­ple who put us in this po­si­tion would have been some­one he even helped," said Ron­dell.He said his fa­ther made sac­ri­fices by work­ing very dili­gent­ly and be­lieved crime could be erad­i­cat­ed by an hon­est day's work and there was no such thing as a small salary.Mem­bers of the De­fence Force, Fire Ser­vices, Air Guard, Po­lice Ser­vice, Amal­ga­mat­ed Se­cu­ri­ty and staff from Sen­tinel Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices at­tend­ed the ser­vice.

The homi­ly was de­liv­ered by Bish­op Carl St Rose who told mourn­ers Clarke had left a lega­cy to fol­low.Clarke was laid to rest at the D'Abadie pub­lic ceme­tery.