An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na.lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The fam­i­ly of the man killed in Bel­mont last Thurs­day says they in­tend to seek asy­lum abroad as T&T is no longer safe and they are fear­ful that war­ring gangs could end their blood­line if they don’t leave the area.

Un­will­ing to be named yes­ter­day, as they spoke with re­porters at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, one man said, “The crime sit­u­a­tion is over­bear­ing now.”

He claimed Shaquille Par­reira “wasn’t a crim­i­nal.”

The 26-year-old of Up­per Bel­mont Val­ley Road, Bel­mont, was shot mul­ti­ple times around 6.30 am on Ju­ly 11 as he wait­ed for a taxi to go to work. It was al­leged that a white car stopped, and a gun­man got out and shot the de­ceased mul­ti­ple times. Par­reira died at the scene.

His fam­i­ly mem­bers, mean­while, who live close enough to hear the gun­shots, were un­aware he had been the tar­get of the lat­est ex­plo­sion in the al­leged gang war­fare rav­aging the Bel­mont com­mu­ni­ty.

In­di­cat­ing his four chil­dren were scared to be left on their own since Par­reira’s death, the rel­a­tive spec­u­lat­ed that an af­fil­i­a­tion with re­port­ed gang mem­bers from the area could be what led to his killing.

“Even if you are a gang­ster now, I know you from small, and just by peo­ple pass­ing and see­ing you just talk­ing to them, they will class yuh. This time you are not in noth­ing, and we won’t shun a boy be­cause we grow up to­geth­er. We are from the same area.”

Par­reira, a fa­ther of one, who was said to be firm­ly root­ed in the Bap­tist faith, was de­scribed as a per­son who was fo­cused on pro­vid­ing for his fam­i­ly.

The rel­a­tive said crim­i­nals of to­day had no code or re­spect as long ago: “If you went for some­body and didn’t find them, you would leave and swing back; you wouldn’t take the women and chil­dren. But it is not that way now.”

Crit­i­cal of the Gov­ern­ment and their mis­han­dling of the crime sit­u­a­tion, the lack of jobs, and the in­abil­i­ty of peo­ple to af­ford ba­sic food items, the rel­a­tive said their house was smack in the mid­dle of the al­leged turf that the Six and Sev­en gangs were fight­ing over.