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Sunday, July 13, 2025

Not all cops killed will get $m payout

by

20161005

Sev­er­al fam­i­lies of of­fi­cers who were killed but not in the line of du­ty will not be re­cip­i­ents of the $1 mil­lion com­pen­sa­tion grant for vic­tims.

Rel­a­tives of mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices who were killed in the line of du­ty would ben­e­fit from the $1 mil­lion com­pen­sative pack­age from the Gov­ern­ment af­ter Cab­i­net ap­proved the pay­out.

How­ev­er, yes­ter­day, se­nior pub­lic af­fairs of­fi­cer of the De­fence Force, Ma­jor Al Alexan­der, said the slain in­di­vid­u­als were cat­e­gorised and some of the men who were killed were not el­i­gi­ble for the mon­ey.

"Some were killed and there are cer­tain cat­e­gories. He (names) was not on du­ty when he was killed. They were not on du­ty and some of the per­sons are not con­sid­ered in the line of du­ty. This gives the im­pres­sion that they qual­i­fy," he said.

Di­rec­tor, Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Mar­cia Hope, said based on the Cab­i­net min­utes the of­fi­cer's fam­i­lies would be com­pen­sat­ed if they were on the job or in the line of du­ty.

At­tempts to con­tact Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon proved fu­tile.

Mean­while, fam­i­ly mem­bers and col­leagues still wept at the men­tion of the names of their slain loved ones who were em­ployed with the pro­tec­tive ser­vices.

For­mer Cen­tral crime-fight­er John­ny Abra­ham's nephew, PC Sher­man May­nard, was killed dur­ing the prison break at the Port-of-Spain Prison last year.

May­nard, 27, died in the line of du­ty when three pris­on­ers es­caped from the prison dur­ing a dar­ing es­cape.

Abra­ham said: "That might be the next two years, the way they drag cer­tain things. It could take two years be­fore they get the mon­ey.

"Who wouldn't be hap­py? The mon­ey wouldn't re­al­ly be of use. It will help when they got kill un­ex­pect­ed­ly and they may have debts and who they were ow­ing."

Abra­ham said that some of the vic­tims might have chil­dren that were go­ing to school.

"When you dead in the Po­lice Ser­vice they re­mem­ber you for the first ten days then no­body don't study you," he said.

For­mer Se­nior Supt of Homi­cide, Zamsheed Mo­hammed, said he was a very close friend of Sgt Hay­den Man­war­ing who was shot dead dur­ing a rob­bery at­tempt three years ago.

Mo­hammed who is now on va­ca­tion said he was more than "just friends" with Man­war­ing.He said Man­war­ing had young chil­dren but it could not bring him back to life.

"There is no price on him. At least the fam­i­ly can have some fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance. Every day I think of him and not a day don't pass and I don't think of him. We were good friends," he said.

Mo­hammed said he re­ceived coun­selling af­ter Man­war­ing's death.

"We were al­ways in the same di­vi­sion or sec­tion and we both had mat­ters in court. When he died I was his di­rect su­per­vi­sor in CID," he added.

When con­tact­ed, Kim Man­war­ing, his wife, said she was busy at the mo­ment and did not an­swer fur­ther calls to her phone. Ma­g­a­ret Samp­son-Browne, for­mer head of the Vic­tims and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit, said she spent some 46 years deal­ing with the vic­tims of crime.

She hopes fam­i­lies will take the mon­ey and do some­thing pro­duc­tive that will re­mind them of the per­son.

"Don't ap­por­tion to some­thing that will give them pain. Don't use it on like some house or car that don't have longevi­ty. A char­i­ty that can blos­som and they can know they were part of the com­mu­ni­ty, hu­mankind and you. It is up to them."

Samp­son-Browne said they would be re­mind­ed of the won­der­ful things when they were on the earth.

"it is grief all over again and au­thor­i­ties have to re­vis­it that grief and of­fer them ses­sions where they could ad­dress that," she added.She said mon­ey could not turn back time but could have val­ue if ap­por­tioned prop­er­ly.

"Like I was able to do some­thing in his or her mem­o­ry. His­to­ry shows mil­lion­aires be­come pau­pers. Mon­ey comes in­to your hands, in­vest it," she added.


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