KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletche@guardian.co.tt

As he took his fi­nal flight yes­ter­day, young Ezekiel Paria, who dreamt of be­com­ing a pi­lot one day, man­aged to bring not on­ly his fam­i­ly and friends but the en­tire Laven­tille com­mu­ni­ty to­geth­er, as they all wept at his fu­ner­al.

Re­mem­bered as be­ing a very lov­ing and kind child by his fam­i­ly and a light to his com­mu­ni­ty, the 12-year-old for­mer East­ern Boys’ Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School stu­dent, who would have sat the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tion in the next three weeks, gar­nered a mass of sup­port­ers at the At Light on the Kill Min­istries, Laven­tille Road, for his fu­ner­al ser­vice.

Paria was killed by a stray bul­let as men opened fire on a car dri­ving by, as he rode his bi­cy­cle near his home in Laven­tille last Thurs­day.

Fol­low­ing the shoot­ing, two sus­pects were held. They were both grant­ed bail for gun pos­ses­sion yes­ter­day, as in­ves­ti­ga­tors were still try­ing to piece to­geth­er ex­act­ly what hap­pened dur­ing the at­tack.

Giv­ing the eu­lo­gy yes­ter­day, Paria’s aunt Sandy Hug­gins said this was not the first time the fam­i­ly had lost a loved one due to gun vi­o­lence.

As such, his fam­i­ly begged all those in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty to unite and bring an end to the killing.

Hug­gins said, “Ezekiel was al­ways lov­ing, kind-heart­ed. He was a lit­tle mis­er­able but nev­er rude or stub­born… It’s sad to see that af­ter 11 years, my moth­er’s fifth child was mur­dered the same way, to come back again to go through this same, same, same thing. How on earth al­lyuh could watch a lit­tle child and just spray up the place?”

She added, “We need to be our broth­er’s keep­er, our sis­ter’s keep­er. Every­body grow up with one an­oth­er. Why all this fight­ing? We need to stop it now.”

Of­fi­ci­at­ing pas­tor Glen­ford Jones said some­thing else is miss­ing, as com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing, joint po­lice pa­trols and even more jobs of­fered to res­i­dents weren’t enough to curb the high crime in the area.

Jones said, “Chil­dren of Laven­tille are cry­ing out. Par­ents cry­ing out. Teach­ers cry­ing out. Who hear­ing them? Are the lead­ers hear­ing them? Some­thing has to be miss­ing for this (crime) to be get­ting worse.

“We can’t go on like this. We tried every­thing pos­si­ble. We tried com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing, it’s still get­ting worse. We tried giv­ing more jobs, it’s still get­ting worse. More po­lice ve­hi­cles, it’s still get­ting worse. Why do we have to come over and over to cry out for our chil­dren and our broth­ers and sis­ters? Their blood is run­ning out on the streets. Every­one talk­ing about love but all we’re see­ing is anger. Why is every­one so an­gry? Why is blood still run­ning in the streets?”

He added, “Some­thing is miss­ing. Crime rip­ping us apart. Our chil­dren, we need to al­low them to come to Je­sus.”

Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) Wal­ter Stew­art al­so plead­ed with the au­thor­i­ties to en­sure Ezekiel’s death is not in vain.

Stew­art said, “Ezekiel’s loss is not on­ly Melis­sa’s (moth­er) loss or East­ern Boys’ Pri­ma­ry’s loss nor Laven­tille’s loss. In­deed, Ezekiel’s loss is a loss for Trinidad and To­ba­go. And my prayer, my hope, is that this pass­ing, this death, this killing will not be in vain but that some­how this loss is go­ing to change the fo­cus and the par­a­digm and the em­pha­sis that we place on crime.”

Pupils of the East­ern Boys’ and Girls’ pri­ma­ry schools al­so gave touch­ing trib­utes to Paria through po­et­ry yes­ter­day.

One pupil and close friend of Paria said, “We’ll al­ways re­mem­ber that spe­cial smile, that pure heart, that warm em­brace. You’ll be there for your friends in good and bad times. Though you are gone, we will al­ways re­mem­ber you Ezekiel.”