Jensen La Vende

Kendell "Chi­nee" Thomas was grabbed from a maxi-taxi on Wednes­day morn­ing de­fend­ing his sis­ter but could not de­fend him­self from his at­tack­ers.Thomas was shot three times, twice in the right arm. An au­top­sy at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day re­vealed they were de­fen­sive wounds.He was al­so shot once in the head. The bul­let en­tered be­tween his eye­brows, the au­top­sy re­vealed.

Af­ter he was shot, Thomas' legs were tied with ca­bles and a con­crete block at­tached to them be­fore he was thrown in­to the riv­er that runs south near Sixth Street, Beetham Gar­dens. He was still breath­ing when his killers threw him in, as the au­top­sy re­port showed he had in­haled mud.

The body of the 24-year-old Thomas was found in the murky wa­ter in the canal near Sixth Street af­ter po­lice re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that he might have been dumped there on Thurs­day af­ter­noon. Po­lice had been search­ing for Thomas since ear­ly Wednes­day af­ter re­ceiv­ing re­ports that he was snatched.Thomas, a pas­sen­ger in a maxi-taxi head­ing in­to Port-of-Spain, was dragged out of it at 19th Street, Beetham Gar­dens, by gun­men when it stopped to drop off two pas­sen­gers around 1.30 am.

Thomas' sis­ter Sheena Charles, who was al­so in the maxi, said her broth­er was grabbed af­ter he tried to pro­tect her from the ban­dits, one of whom broke an arm in his bid to es­cape.Charles told the Guardian her broth­er and friend An­na Lyons were in the back seat of the maxi with her when her broth­er be­gan ask­ing the ban­dits, "Wha is dah one?" She said the men took her chain and tried to take her broth­er's. An­oth­er of the ban­dits or­dered every­one out of the maxi and Thomas, us­ing his body, pro­tect­ed her from be­ing dragged out.

Charles said a man in the front seat then told the dri­ver to dri­ve off and he com­plied.Po­lice have held five men, one of whom was the 14-year-old who broke his arm af­ter falling out of the mov­ing maxi.Thomas' moth­er Sheila Charles said, in a tele­phone in­ter­view, "I wish that the law do some­thing very ur­gent about them. Don't waste no time at all. They de­serve to be put away."She said she was very proud of her son who died as he de­fend­ed his younger sis­ter.

"I am very, very proud of him. That is the type of per­son he was. He will do any­thing to help any­body," Charles said of her first­born son.