An­na-Lisa Paul

The great-grand­moth­er of six-year-old Kylie Mel­oney yes­ter­day begged for an­swers on why her an­gel was snatched by gun-tot­ing crim­i­nals with no re­gard for hu­man life.

“Why the chil­dren have to get tie up in all this thing...why they killing the chil­dren?” Jem­ma Mel­oney asked with tears run­ning down her cheeks at the child’s fu­ner­al ser­vice.

“Leave the chil­dren out of the thing...what­ev­er go­ing on...leave the chil­dren alone.”

She plead­ed with the crim­i­nals to put down the guns.

Speak­ing min­utes be­fore Kylie’s body ar­rived at the fam­i­ly’s Quash Trace, Fos­ter Road, San­gre Grande home for her fu­ner­al, Jem­ma ges­tured to the sur­round­ing hous­es as she spoke of the pain and loss all the res­i­dents were ex­pe­ri­enc­ing.

Kylie was killed by gun­men dressed in mil­i­tary cloth­ing while stay­ing with her moth­er at a rel­a­tive’s house on Jan­u­ary 8.

The sus­pects re­port­ed­ly stormed the res­i­dence and opened fire on the oc­cu­pants, hit­ting Kylie in the chest and her moth­er and two oth­ers in­jured.

Yes­ter­day, Jem­ma said the crime sit­u­a­tion was ter­ri­ble and wished for a so­lu­tion.

“Put down the gun,” she cried.

“Let peo­ple live. Peo­ple have to live man. Why they shoot­ing the peo­ple? Why? Why? The chil­dren and all in it too. It is not nice at all. They cut­ting the chil­dren life short. This child now start to go to school.”

She said the crime scene now was a “no no.”

The white tents at the venue were dec­o­rat­ed with pink and white bal­loons and a ta­ble fea­tured a pink cake bear­ing Kylie’s pic­tures; presents; a pic­ture of Kylie and her mom Akeela; and a gold he­li­um num­ber sev­en bal­loon was tied on the bur­glar proof­ing of a win­dow.

Jem­ma said al­though Kylie was not there to cel­e­brate her sev­enth birth­day on Jan­u­ary 13, the fam­i­ly opt­ed to host the par­ty as planned and in­vit­ed all the chil­dren in the neigh­bour­hood to share what would have been a grand cel­e­bra­tion in Kylie’s mem­o­ry.

She shared a snip­pet of who Kylie was as she re­vealed her an­gel had been known for al­ways rid­ing in the neigh­bour­hood, and that like any oth­er child, she al­so loved to sing, dance and mod­el.

The acute loss plunged an en­tire com­mu­ni­ty in­to mourn­ing, in­clud­ing the men on the block as she claimed, “We re­al­ly griev­ing for that child.”

Kylie’s aunt, Shar­lene Her­rera, re­mem­bered her as head­strong and al­ways quick “to call a meet­ing” when­ev­er there was an is­sue which need­ed ad­dress­ing.

She de­scribed her niece as, “a beau­ty who warmed the hearts of many.”

Rev­erend Dar­rin Parks, of St There­sa’s Bap­tist Church, said while Kylie’s death was a stark re­minder of the frailty of life, it was yet an­oth­er ex­am­ple of just how a na­tion and even its Prime Min­is­ter could be moved.

Parks said while she rep­re­sent­ed every in­no­cence, treach­ery was the op­po­site and was ev­i­dent in the wicked ac­tions of oth­ers. How­ev­er, he urged the fam­i­ly to re­main strong and con­fi­dent in God’s love.

De­liv­er­ing some sober­ing re­marks dur­ing the ser­vice, San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Anil Juter­am called on the 41 par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to dis­re­gard their re­spec­tive par­ty sym­bols, stop bash­ing each oth­er and unite to fight crime for the cit­i­zens.

He said, “When good men stay qui­et, a coun­try goes in­to hor­ror and de­cay.”

Point­ing to the num­ber of po­lice of­fi­cers present at the fu­ner­al, Juter­am praised their good work.

Chal­leng­ing oth­er en­ti­ties to join the fight against crime in a more mean­ing­ful way, he said, “It is time that we put more em­pha­sis on the church­es, the mosques and the tem­ples so that they will do their part in what they have been do­ing and what they con­tin­ue to do.”

He said if the coun­try’s par­lia­men­tar­i­ans failed to set aside par­ty pol­i­tics and work to­geth­er, “The law­break­ers will con­tin­ue to have a green light to do what they do­ing and get away with it.”

Juter­am al­so called on the in­com­ing Pres­i­dent to take a clos­er look at the op­er­a­tions of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) and the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) – the two units set up to in­ves­ti­gate com­plaints against serv­ing of­fi­cers.

Juter­am con­tin­ued, “I am ask­ing who­ev­er that new pres­i­dent is to take stock and fine tune so we will give our po­lice­men and women the op­por­tu­ni­ty to deal with the crim­i­nal el­e­ment in the man­ner in which they are sup­posed to be dealt with. It is time for the of­fi­cers to take that kid’s glove off and take the fight to the el­e­ment.”

Kylie was lat­er buried at the Fos­ter Road Pub­lic Ceme­tery.