Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Two teenagers were killed and an­oth­er in­jured af­ter a joyride end­ed in a po­lice chase that led to the car they were in crash­ing in­to a light pole in Pointe-a-Pierre on Mon­day night.

Friends Ke­li­ta King, 16, a Form Four stu­dent at Mara­bel­la Sec­ondary, and Trey Col­ly­more, 15, a stu­dent of Ser­vol Life Cen­tre, died min­utes apart.

An­oth­er pas­sen­ger in the car, Joel Yarde, 16, was al­so ward­ed in a sta­ble con­di­tion at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal last night.

Po­lice said a fourth oc­cu­pant, age 16, be­lieved to be the dri­ver, was found walk­ing on the road a short dis­tance away from the crash. The own­er of the car sub­se­quent­ly told po­lice that he did not give him per­mis­sion to use the ve­hi­cle.

Po­lice re­ports state that of­fi­cers from the Mara­bel­la Po­lice Sta­tion were con­duct­ing a road traf­fic ex­er­cise at 9.40 pm along the South­ern Main Road, Pointe-a-Pierre, near Trop­i­cal Plaza, when they at­tempt­ed stop a red Nis­san Ti­i­da. How­ev­er, the dri­ver of the ve­hi­cle sped past the of­fi­cers, who then pur­sued the car. The car even­tu­al­ly veered off the road and slammed in­to a light pole near Flower Pot Beach. Po­lice said the three teenagers were pinned in the back­seat.

Fire of­fi­cers from the Mon Re­pos Fire Sta­tion re­spond­ed to a trou­ble call from the po­lice and used the jaws of life to re­trieve the teens from the ve­hi­cle.

King died at the scene and Col­ly­more suc­cumbed to his in­juries at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Po­lice did not im­me­di­ate­ly dis­close who was dri­ving the car.

King’s moth­er Bet­sy King was too dis­traught to speak with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day. He was the last of her six chil­dren and was born in the Unit­ed States.

His aunt Nike­ta Day­al said King’s moth­er lived abroad but re­turned to T&T about eight years ago. Day­al said King and his moth­er made fre­quent trips to the US.

Day­al, a moth­er of two, re­called that at 9 pm, she told her sons and King that she was go­ing to sleep and they were not to go out­side. Short­ly af­ter, Col­ly­more and oth­er friends ar­rived at the house in the Ti­i­da.

She said she on­ly knew that King had left with them when her son woke her up around mid­night to tell her about the ac­ci­dent.

Day­al be­lieves the dri­ver got fright­ened when he saw the po­lice.

“I be­lieve as youths they got fright­ened know­ing that they were joyrid­ing with­out a li­cence and prob­a­bly did not want to get in trou­ble. I don’t think it was that se­ri­ous that they were on any­thing bad, it was just a joyride ba­si­cal­ly and got scared and lose con­trol of the car,” Day­al said.

She urged young peo­ple to carve out their own des­tiny and not fol­low friends.

“I was a young moth­er. I strug­gled a lot with my boys and one thing I al­ways tell them is that friends is car­ry­ing you and don’t bring you back. Al­ways be a leader and not a fol­low­er,” Day­al said.

“Ba­si­cal­ly, have your head on and say no some­times. Not be­cause your friend ask you to do some­thing; ques­tion them, ask ques­tions, don’t just jump in­to a car not know­ing where is your des­ti­na­tion. Stay in school.”

De­scrib­ing King as a lov­ing, qui­et and re­spectable young man, she said his moth­er was plan­ning to take him to the US soon.

Col­ly­more’s fa­ther, Char­lie Col­ly­more, said he last saw his son at 2 pm, when he left work to drop food for him at their home.

He did not know his son’s where­abouts af­ter that but his in­for­ma­tion was that he went to play foot­ball.

“They say­ing is that he went to play foot­ball and like when they leave they was in this car with the fel­lah who car­ry them to the foot­ball and they saw the po­lice and the fel­lah did not have no li­cence—which was his moth­er car, and that’s when he start dri­ving fast and run off the road.”

Col­ly­more urged chil­dren to lis­ten to their par­ents and adults.

“You see, they doesn’t lis­ten. They see what go­ing on and still not learn­ing,” he lament­ed.

Mean­while, in a state­ment on the in­ci­dent, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice South/Cen­tral Wayne Mys­tar ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies and as­sured that the po­lice are con­duct­ing a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Urg­ing mo­torists to obey traf­fic laws to pre­vent tragedies, Mys­tar said he was deeply con­cerned that all the pas­sen­gers, in­clud­ing the dri­ver, were mi­nors.

Warn­ing that ve­hi­cle own­ers who al­low un­li­censed mi­nors to dri­ve could face pros­e­cu­tion, he urged par­ents and guardians to pre­vent un­der-age dri­ving. He al­so en­cour­aged the pub­lic to re­port reck­less dri­ving via 999. He said fur­ther up­dates on the ac­ci­dent would be pro­vid­ed.

WC­pl Chan­g­oor, of the Mara­bel­la Po­lice Sta­tion, is in­ves­ti­gat­ing.