The rel­a­tives of 74-year-old Frank Alan Sandy are de­mand­ing an­swers and a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion af­ter he was shot and killed by an off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer, who lived al­most next to his house.

Sandy’s rel­a­tives be­lieve he was con­fused and dis­ori­ent­ed, as he had been suf­fer­ing from wors­en­ing mem­o­ry loss and pos­si­bly thought he was try­ing to get back in­to his own home. He was killed af­ter re­turn­ing from a morn­ing walk in Mt St George, To­ba­go.

Po­lice said around 5 am, a po­lice con­sta­ble claimed the el­der­ly man tried to break in­to his home and charged at him with an ob­ject in his hand. The of­fi­cer said he feared for his life and fired his li­cenced firearm, hit­ting Sandy three times.

But Sandy’s daugh­ter, Me­lessia Sandy, said her fa­ther had no his­to­ry of vi­o­lence and nev­er com­mit­ted a crime in his life.

“They’re shoot­ing him like a ban­dit this morn­ing.”

While she said her fa­ther was not for­mal­ly di­ag­nosed, he had shown clear signs of wors­en­ing mem­o­ry loss prob­lems in re­cent months. Me­lessia said Sandy was a pa­tient at a health cen­tre and fre­quent­ly com­plained about pain in his head.

She said her fa­ther may have mis­tak­en the of­fi­cer’s house for his own.

“The on­ly thing I could think about, I’m not say­ing that he did not go there be­cause I was not there, but be­cause of his prob­lem, he would mis­take the board en­trances. So if he go think­ing that he’s at home, he would shake the door or knock as he nor­mal­ly does for us to hear that he want to come in.”

Sandy left his home short­ly be­fore the shoot­ing, telling his fam­i­ly he need­ed to take a walk. His daugh­ter said he wasn’t him­self that morn­ing and left the house wear­ing two box­ers, a T-shirt, and sneak­ers—cloth­ing he wouldn’t nor­mal­ly wear in pub­lic.

“He said he had to go. He had to go. But we told him, don’t leave. He said ‘I had to take a walk’. So I said we al­low him to leave. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 4.45, we heard gun­shots, three gun­shots,” she said.

The daugh­ter said by the time rel­a­tives reached out­side to see what hap­pened, her fa­ther had al­ready been tak­en to hos­pi­tal. She lament­ed that no one in­formed the fam­i­ly about what oc­curred.

“They treat­ed him like a John Doe. They treat­ed him as a no­body, like a dog, even af­ter they (po­lice) came and got the name from us, they just took him to the morgue and tell me come back Mon­day… So I can­not say yes, this is my fa­ther be­cause I have not seen any­thing, not even blood.”

Me­lessia be­lieves the shoot­ing could have been avoid­ed.

“I un­der­stand you got rat­tling, you fear for your life, what­ev­er, but the sit­u­a­tion could have been dealt with dif­fer­ent­ly. Even if some­body come in­to and they’re knock­ing—ban­dit eh knock­ing on door, come on.”

She said her fa­ther was not phys­i­cal­ly ca­pa­ble of forc­ing his way in­to any house.

“He couldn’t break down a door. He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t even hear prop­er­ly. So if you shout stop—he wouldn’t hear. And then his head, he think he’s at home, and we not open­ing the door for him… You tell me that one shot couldn’t throw him down? Where you come out with just shoot him three times? Three times? No, that can’t be fair, man.”

While rel­a­tives said they would be fil­ing a re­port with the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty, Sandy’s daugh­ter is not get­ting her hopes up.

“We don’t ex­pect no jus­tice. We leave it up to God.

“God said to for­give, and I may for­give and just keep my peace. But for now is my fa­ther. Af­ter God, my fa­ther was my every­thing.”

Sandy’s wife, Claudette Jor­dan Sandy, was stunned that the off-du­ty of­fi­cer, who is their neigh­bour, nev­er came and spoke to the fam­i­ly.

“I would still sym­pa­thize with him be­cause in this world Sa­tan is very busy.”

Res­i­dents in the com­mu­ni­ty said the in­ci­dent was sad and shock­ing and said the pen­sion­er lived qui­et­ly in the com­mu­ni­ty.

The PCA di­rec­tor, David West, con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia they were aware of the case and would be look­ing in­to the mat­ter.

Of­fi­cers of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion are al­so in­ves­ti­gat­ing the in­ci­dent.