Rhon­dor Dowlat

Sel­wyn "Robo­cop" Alex­is, 51, was mur­dered be­cause he had pledged to ex­pose the op­er­a­tions of the Un­ruly Isis gang, their af­fil­i­a­tion and close net­work­ing with some mem­bers of two of the coun­try's ma­jor law en­force­ment agen­cies, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and the T&T De­fence Force.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, near to where Alex­is and two oth­ers were killed at Free­dom Street, Ch­agua­nas, on Sun­day, a close af­fil­i­ate of Alex­is said that just be­fore he was am­bushed and killed, he had told a few peo­ple of his frus­tra­tion with the threats and sense­less crim­i­nal acts car­ried out by mem­bers of the gang.

"'Robo' (as Alex­is was called) tried many times to pro­mote peace again in the com­mu­ni­ty but he was fed up with the con­stant dis­re­spect he got from those un­ruly youths, the as­so­ciate claimed. "Them show up to be re­al char­ac­ters and Robo was ready to put his foot down and talk," the af­fil­i­ate said.

Alex­is, a fa­ther of nine, and Kevin Es­cayg were killed af­ter a group of men, be­lieved to be Un­ruly Isis mem­bers, am­bushed them out­side Alex­is' car­wash. Es­cayg was killed as he shield­ed his son, Kir­chard Scott, from the bul­lets.

But Alex­is man­aged to kill one of his at­tack­ers, Thomas "Hamza" Sharpe, a known Un­ruly Isis mem­ber who had ini­tial­ly at­tempt­ed to dis­tract Alex­is be­fore the oth­er gang mem­bers launched their at­tack out of a ve­hi­cle they had ear­li­er stolen.

Un­ruly Isis

Yes­ter­day, the af­fil­i­ate said Alex­is had first-hand in­for­ma­tion on how the Un­ruly Isis op­er­at­ed, who were the "in­flu­encers" in the gang and which law en­force­ment of­fi­cers for whom they al­leged­ly con­duct­ed "pet­ty crimes".

"Alex­is had strong­ly be­lieved that even some mem­bers of the me­dia were be­ing ma­nip­u­lat­ed when they on­ly ran what was giv­en to them from some po­lice of­fi­cers. He found that they weren't com­ing in­to the area to con­duct un­bi­ased and in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tions to get to the bot­tom of what re­al­ly was hap­pen­ing here in En­ter­prise," the af­fil­i­ate said.

The af­fil­i­ate was speak­ing about the spate of mur­ders which oc­curred in the com­mu­ni­ty ear­li­er this year, forc­ing po­lice and sol­diers to lock down the area for weeks.

It is al­leged that the in­flu­ence of some mem­bers of the gang was so far-reach­ing, that one of Alex­is' close male rel­a­tives al­leged­ly aban­doned his care and guid­ance to join the Un­ruly Isis.

"Robo felt sor­ry for the youths and how they were be­ing led astray but they were be­ing en­cour­aged by some po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers when they were on­ly (al­leged­ly) re­ceiv­ing high-pow­ered as­sault ri­fles, high-tech hand guns and am­mu­ni­tion," the af­fil­i­ate said.

"Robo's heart went out to them, es­pe­cial­ly know­ing that most of them came from sin­gle par­ent homes al­so and that was the kind of per­son that Robo had be­come."

The T&T Guardian was told that just re­cent­ly was the first time in all his years of be­ing a Mus­lim that Alex­is ob­served i'tikaaf dur­ing the last ten days of Ra­madan, where he stayed in the En­ter­prise Com­mu­ni­ty Masjid keep­ing the fast and of­fer­ing fer­vent prayers for his fam­i­ly, com­mu­ni­ty and peace in the com­mu­ni­ty.

A mem­ber of the mosque, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied, said that for some strange rea­son, Alex­is knew that af­ter Eid things were go­ing to get worse in the com­mu­ni­ty.

"I feel he knew that he was go­ing to die but I know that he would not have gone down with­out a fight," the mosque mem­ber said.

Cops de­tain Imam

He­len Lynch, the wife of Alex­is' close friend, Imam Mor­land Muaky­il Ab­dul­lah, said yes­ter­day that she knew Alex­is was work­ing along with her hus­band to at­tempt to re­store peace in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Iron­i­cal­ly, Imam Ab­dul­lah, of the En­ter­prise Mosque in Crown Trace, was tak­en in­to po­lice cus­tody at 6 am yes­ter­day. Asked for what rea­son, Lynch said she was most­ly in the dark about it.

"First­ly, the po­lice did not come in any hos­tile way. They came and spoke to him qui­et­ly and nice­ly and he left with them. I was told that he was need­ed by In­tel­li­gence but then I got a call say­ing that an­oth­er set of po­lice of­fi­cers want­ed to talk to him be­cause they think that his life may be in dan­ger some­how as well, fol­low­ing Robo's mur­der," Lynch said.

She and her hus­band were in the process of plan­ning a one-year an­niver­sary prayer event for her son, Ack­mal Lynch, 22, who was al­so gunned down. Ack­mal and his broth­er were at a con­struc­tion site in Char­lieville last Ju­ly 22 when gun­men en­tered and shot them. Aqy­il was shot in the leg.

"Robo's killing in this time and my hus­band's de­ten­tion in po­lice cus­tody for the next 72 hours is a set­back for us. I am sat­is­fied though, how both of them worked to­geth­er to try to bring back peace in the com­mu­ni­ty. It's a cause both of them fought for and I am sure, will­ing to die for," Lynch said.

Asked if she was scared for her life and that of her hus­band, Lynch said she was not.

"I used to be very much afraid but af­ter my son got killed I got the strength and I re­alised that we have to do some­thing to pro­tect oth­ers. Broth­ers are be­ing killed and get­ting hurt and we need to do some­thing be­cause what they are do­ing is not right," she said.

Plea for peace

In a trib­ute to his fa­ther yes­ter­day, Alex­is' son, Ker­ron, said he learned a lot from his fa­ther over the years and saw him do every­thing to try to bring the youths to­geth­er and for peace.

Alex­is' wife, Bernadette, said to com­ment on her hus­band would show her bias and dared the T&T Guardian to go to the old­er heads in the com­mu­ni­ty to hear their views and opin­ions about Alex­is.

"He was the kind of per­son that helped peo­ple in need, es­pe­cial­ly those who could not have af­ford­ed milk and pam­pers for their ba­bies," Bernadette said.

Alex­is had had sev­er­al brush­es with the law in the past and was re­put­ed to be the leader of a crim­i­nal gang him­self.

But Free­dom Street res­i­dent, As­s­raph Ali, 74, de­scribed Alex­is as a good man.

"I knew him for the past 15 years when I moved in­to the area and I have nev­er known him to be a bad man. I nev­er asked him to do any­thing for me but he showed me the re­spect and I knew of peo­ple who he helped in one way or the oth­er. It is sad he had to go that way but we need some­one now to take over his lega­cy," he added.