Sea Lots res­i­dent Nechelle Val­le­nil­la yes­ter­day called on the com­mu­ni­ty to de­mand jus­tice for the killing of his friend Jonathan Whar­wood. Whar­wood was shot by po­lice and suc­cumbed to his in­juries last month.

Speak­ing dur­ing the fu­ner­al ser­vice at the Sea Lots Bas­ket­ball Court, Val­le­nil­la said since the death of Cedric Burke in Sep­tem­ber 2020 from COVID-19, the com­mu­ni­ty had lost its vigour. He said Whar­wood’s death had on­ly added to the sor­row of res­i­dents. He said he was now more afraid of the po­lice than crim­i­nals.

“Since Burke’s death, this com­mu­ni­ty crash­ing. Right now, I fear­ful for my life dread be­cause I don’t deal in crime. I con­sid­er my­self hon­est as pos­si­ble and I had­da brakes from crim­i­nal, every­day life and the now po­lice. I more fright­en when I hear po­lice than dri­ve­by,” he said.

Po­lice re­port­ed that Whar­wood, a ma­son, was killed as of­fi­cers searched a house in Sea Lots at 1 am on Ju­ly 23.

Po­lice claimed they went in search of the sus­pect(s) al­leged­ly con­nect­ed with a shoot­ing at St Paul Street, East Dry Riv­er, where PC Shakala Charles, of the Guard and Emer­gency Branch, and a 26-year-old Diego Mar­tin were shot hours ear­li­er. Of­fi­cers said Whar­wood al­leged­ly con­front­ed them with a cut­lass and he was shot.

Val­le­nil­la, a fish­er­man, said a man’s home is sup­posed to be his sanc­tu­ary but af­ter his friend was killed, he no longer feels safe in his home. Cry­ing as he spoke, he said the res­i­dents should have lined the Beetham High­way and stop traf­fic to de­mand jus­tice for “John­ny”.

He lament­ed that the com­mu­ni­ty seem­ing­ly went on with their lives as though noth­ing hap­pened.

“We not sup­posed to take that boy! I not sleep­ing boy. Be­fore, when I come from the sea I used to go and lie down with my chil­dren but these days I not go­ing home, I fright­en boy,” he said.

Ref­er­enc­ing a line from the hymn Blessed As­sur­ance, which says “This is my sto­ry, this is my song,” Val­le­nil­la said the death of Whar­wood should not be the com­mu­ni­ty’s sto­ry nor song.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing he was not a re­li­gious man, Val­le­nil­la said he was an­gry with God, as there was no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for what he de­scribed as the “mur­der” of Whar­wood

Whar­wood’s daugh­ter Amo­ra said she and her two sib­lings were robbed of a lov­ing fa­ther, in a time where the im­por­tance of a fa­ther fig­ure in the lives of their chil­dren is high­light­ed.

She said her fa­ther was brave and strong and she longed to go fish­ing with him one day but that nev­er hap­pened.

“I am sched­uled to write the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) next year and would have loved to share the good news with my fa­ther, but the state of Trinidad and To­ba­go took that away from me. My big broth­er is sched­uled to write the Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tion Coun­cil (CXC) next year and would have loved to share the good news, but the state of Trinidad and To­ba­go took that away from us,” she cried.

A day af­ter the po­lice shoot­ing, of­fi­cials from the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty vis­it­ed the com­mu­ni­ty and as­sured a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

This was fol­lowed up by the MP for the area and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Kei­th Scot­land, vis­it­ing the com­mu­ni­ty on Ju­ly 27. Scot­land al­so as­sured res­i­dents the probe would be thor­ough and asked that they give au­thor­i­ties time to com­plete it.