A re­ward of $25,000 has been of­fered for in­for­ma­tion that leads to the cap­ture of the peo­ple re­spon­si­ble for the mur­ders of two-year-old Ani­ah Jag­ger­nauth and her fa­ther, Ste­fon McLeod.

News­pa­per ad­ver­tise­ments pub­lished on Fri­day, on the very day the fu­ner­al of the fa­ther and daugh­ter was held, ap­pealed for in­for­mants to call 800-TIPS (8577) or sub­mit in­for­ma­tion anony­mous­ly via www.crimestop­per­stt.com.

The re­ward was first an­nounced on Thurs­day by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith dur­ing a T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) me­dia brief­ing. He has had a lot to say about the mur­der of Ani­ah, crit­i­ciz­ing the lack of pub­lic out­rage and us­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to hit back at crit­ics of the TTPS.

Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith’s an­gry de­c­la­ra­tions aside, there have been many ex­pres­sions of grief and rage and even one mis­guid­ed protest in Port-of-Spain, com­bined with suf­fi­cient so­cial me­dia out­pour­ing to en­sure that Ani­ah and the cold-blood­ed way in which her short life end­ed, re­mains in the pub­lic sphere.

The hope is that there is enough thirst for jus­tice to be done in her case to bring about the cap­ture and con­vic­tion of the gun­men who pumped bul­lets in­to her tiny body.

There is no price that can be put on Ani­ah’s life or all the oth­er lives that have end­ed in a bru­tal and un­time­ly man­ner, all of them vic­tims of the gang-re­lat­ed gun vi­o­lence that con­tin­ues al­most with­out pause.

Fri­day al­so marked an­oth­er trag­ic mile­stone for lit­tle Ani­ah and her fa­ther, Stephon. It marked one week since their killers am­bushed them in a car and rid­dled their bod­ies with bul­lets. A week that end­ed with the ar­rest of a sus­pect.

This means that there is, at least, hope for some clo­sure for all the peo­ple that love them and en­dured the un­bear­able pain of look­ing at them one last time be­fore they were buried to­geth­er in a sin­gle cas­ket.

Lit­tle Ani­ah on­ly lived 19 days past her sec­ond birth­day. When she was laid to rest at the Tu­na­puna Pub­lic Ceme­tery fol­low­ing a very emo­tion­al pub­lic view­ing at her home and a ser­vice at a near­by church, what was put in­to the ground was not on­ly her mor­tal re­mains but all of the pos­si­bil­i­ties and promise that would have been re­vealed as she grew.

It is im­pos­si­ble to quan­ti­fy what was lost by her fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty. The one thing that is cer­tain is that it is well be­yond the $25,000 re­ward of­fered for help in solv­ing her case

The de­mand for jus­tice to be done in this mat­ter can­not be quelled a sin­gle ar­rest. A de­mand must be made of the TTPS and every na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agency and law en­force­ment of­fi­cer to turn the tide against the crim­i­nals who have tak­en more than 222 lives in just the first six months of the year.

While Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith rails against the lack of pub­lic out­rage over Ani­ah’s mur­der, there should al­so be out­rage through­out the ranks in the TTPS, enough out­rage to en­sure that this does not be­come an­oth­er un­solved crime.

The na­tion waits for jus­tice to be done.