RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

From the same church where he was bap­tised, slain Staff Sergeant of the T&T Reg­i­ment Ken Palmer was giv­en a som­bre send-off yes­ter­day, a week af­ter he was shot dead dur­ing a land dis­pute.

En­cased in a cas­ket draped with the Na­tion­al flag, Palmer’s body was brought in­to the La Brea In­de­pen­dent Bap­tist Church at Chin­fong Al­ley, Sobo around 9 am where his child­hood friends, fam­i­ly and mil­i­tary col­leagues bid him a fi­nal farewell.

He was giv­en a full mil­i­tary send-off which end­ed with a 21-gun salute be­fore he was buried at the La Brea pub­lic ceme­tery.

La Brea MP Nicole Olivierre was al­so in at­ten­dance while Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon ar­rived short­ly be­fore the fu­ner­al end­ed.

Pas­tor Nor­bert Moses, who de­liv­ered the ser­mon, said Palmer’s death was proof of the moral de­cay of T&T’s so­ci­ety. Say­ing blood is con­tin­u­ing to spill be­cause par­ents were not dis­ci­plin­ing their chil­dren, Moses called on par­ents to re­store spir­i­tu­al­i­ty in the home.

He said long ago busi­ness­es re­mained closed on Sun­days be­cause fam­i­lies would use this day for spir­i­tu­al mat­ters.

“To­day par­ents are lis­ten­ing to their chil­dren and the chil­dren are not lis­ten­ing to the par­ents. I come from a time when par­ents dis­ci­plined chil­dren but to­day peo­ple are call­ing parental dis­ci­pline abuse,” Moses said.

He added that the young peo­ple are full of hate, bit­ter­ness and anger.

“God is will­ing to par­don us but we are tak­ing God out of every­thing and giv­ing Sa­tan con­trol over every­thing,” Moses said.

Rel­a­tive Na­talia Grif­fith, who de­liv­ered the eu­lo­gy, de­scribed Palmer as a de­vot­ed fa­ther to his four chil­dren— Kacha, Karen, Kay­ron and Kay­ley.

“He kept all his fa­thers’ day cards and pho­tos with his chil­dren which he proud­ly dis­played in his home,” Grif­fith said. Cap­tain Mod­este of the T&T Reg­i­ment said Palmer be­came a sol­dier on De­cem­ber 15, 1995 and rose up the ranks of the mil­i­tary serv­ing as a ri­fle­man, a Lance Cor­po­ral, Cor­po­ral and fi­nal­ly a Staff Sergeant. She said he was al­ways help­ful to his col­leagues

Olivierre, in an in­ter­view, said Palmer was a well loved mem­ber of the com­mu­ni­ty.

“He was known as a strong but kind sol­dier and an ex­am­ple to many. His trag­ic and un­time­ly pass­ing came at a time when the nor­mal­ly qui­et com­mu­ni­ty was reel­ing from the trag­ic quadru­ple mur­der which took place on the pre­vi­ous the day. It has been a very dif­fi­cult time for all who know and loved Sgt Palmer and the wider com­mu­ni­ty,” Olivierre said.

A rel­a­tive of Palmer’s com­mon-law wife Rad­i­ca Pooran was ar­rest­ed for his killing as he at­tempt­ed to board a boat in Erin. He is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear in court lat­er this week.