JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Mur­dered po­lice of­fi­cer PC Rom­mel Dou­glas was giv­en a mil­i­tary send-off yes­ter­day at the Mor­vant Cen­tral Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, where his fi­nal farewell was at­tend­ed by close friends, fam­i­ly mem­bers and col­leagues.

At the re­quest of the fam­i­ly, the me­dia was not al­lowed in­side the cen­tre dur­ing the ser­vice. Fam­i­ly mem­bers al­so in­struct­ed those in at­ten­dance not to record or take pho­tographs of the fu­ner­al pro­ceed­ings.

Dou­glas, 48, was shot dead on Ju­ly 28. Po­lice re­port­ed that he was sit­ting in his white Nis­san Ti­i­da along South Bank Road, near Hy­draulic Trace, Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni, at around 11.05 pm when gun­men con­front­ed him.

Dur­ing the con­fronta­tion, Dou­glas shot one of the men be­fore he was shot. The in­jured sus­pect was tak­en to the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal, where he lat­er died. He was sub­se­quent­ly iden­ti­fied as 19-year-old Adetole Am­mon of Print­eryville, Ari­ma.

Po­lice have said they are con­tin­u­ing their search for the two re­main­ing sus­pects.

Yes­ter­day, mem­bers of the mourn­ing guard placed Dou­glas’ cas­ket on their shoul­ders and ush­ered him in­to the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre in a slow-march pro­ces­sion. As the cas­ket, draped in the po­lice flag, en­tered the build­ing, one of his col­leagues sang Gone Too Soon, orig­i­nal­ly sung by Michael Jack­son.

The fa­ther of three was re­mem­bered through trib­utes from fam­i­ly and friends, while his broth­er, Mikhail Dou­glas, de­liv­ered the eu­lo­gy ac­cord­ing to the fu­ner­al pro­gramme. The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice was list­ed to give words of com­fort.

No­tably ab­sent from the ser­vice were Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro and his deputies Ju­nior Ben­jamin, Suzette Mar­tin and Natasha George.

Dou­glas was lat­er cre­mat­ed at the K Allen and Sons Fu­ner­al Home in Ari­ma fol­low­ing a repast at the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre.

Dou­glas, who spent most of his ca­reer in the West­ern Di­vi­sion, was de­scribed as a ded­i­cat­ed of­fi­cer. Sev­er­al re­tired po­lice of­fi­cers who worked along­side him al­so at­tend­ed the ser­vice to pay their re­spects.

His death came as rel­a­tives from over­seas had re­turned for a week-long fam­i­ly re­union.