Rhon­dor Dowlat

Trust is­sues and the can­cer of hate is pre­dom­i­nant among the peo­ple of T&T. And it is be­lieved that this was the per­fect ex­am­ple which led to the cir­cum­stances lead­ing to the death of “vig­i­lante” vic­tim Ash­dale Mc Hutchin­son.
Of­fi­ci­at­ing priest at the Good Shep­herd An­gli­can Church in Tu­na­puna, Archdea­con North, The Ven­er­a­ble Ken­ley Baldeo, in his homi­ly dur­ing Mc Hutchin­son’s fu­ner­al ser­vice yes­ter­day said cit­i­zens of T&T are “liv­ing in a so­ci­ety that is on the edge” and “where the in­no­cent pays for the guilty and the guilty seems to walk free.”
He said, “A so­ci­ety that is on edge where it is dif­fi­cult to seem to be able to trust any­one. We are liv­ing in a so­ci­ety to­day where the can­cer of hate stands too pre­dom­i­nant with­in our peo­ple and it is to a large ex­tent that that in­ci­dent would have hap­pened to Ash­dale,” Baldeo said.
Baldeo said the truth may nev­er be told in Mc Hutchin­son’s case but re-as­sured the griev­ing fam­i­ly and friends that “there is one who dies not sleep and whose eyes run to and fro, who un­der­stands what we do not un­der­stand, one who knows what we do not know and one whose judg­ment is on time.”
“Our so­ci­ety to­day is falling apart faster than morn­ing turns from night…we need to get back to the ole time days where val­ue and morals ex­ist­ed,” he added.
Mc Hutchin­son’s sis­ter, Ani­ka who de­liv­ered a very emo­tion­al eu­lo­gy, de­fend­ing her broth­er’s good name lament­ed that “not one res­i­dent at Orop­une stood up for my broth­er while he was be­ing robbed and beat­en.”
An uniden­ti­fied woman, who gave her con­tri­bu­tion dur­ing the “open floor” seg­ment, said she knew Mc Hutchin­son from a ba­by grow­ing up and knew about his gen­uine love for chil­dren and every­one around him.

“I asked him one time since you love chil­dren so much why don’t you have as your own…he said to me ‘I don’t need too I have lots of chil­dren around and every­body is my fam­i­ly... That was the type of per­son Ash­dale was! He loved all and gave all he had to all.”
On May 30, Mc Hutchin­son, 47, was ac­cused of at­tempt­ing to lure a five-year-old girl away from a near­by play­ground.

He was chased af­ter by Orop­une res­i­dents and at­tempt­ed to hide in some bush­es, but the res­i­dents lit the bush­es on fire caus­ing him to run out. He was then held, bad­ly beat­en and hog-tied. Parts of the in­ci­dent were record­ed via cell phones and shared on so­cial me­dia.
Mc Hutchin­son, 49, died at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, at about 11 am on Sun­day, hav­ing nev­er re­gained con­scious­ness. Fol­low­ing his death, res­i­dents ex­pressed re­gret, re­morse and sad­ness over his death and the cir­cum­stances.
In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.