Shane Su­perville

While she did not know of him be­ing di­rect­ly in­volved in any­thing il­le­gal, a close rel­a­tive of 17-year-old Brent Bap­tiste says she and oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers have warned him re­peat­ed­ly about the com­pa­ny he kept.

Po­lice re­port­ed that Bap­tiste was shot and killed by of­fi­cers of the Port of Spain Task Force when he point­ed a gun at them af­ter a car chase that end­ed at Bot­tle Al­ley, off La­dy Young Av­enue, Mor­vant, on Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon.

Three gun­men who were with Bap­tiste at the time of the in­ci­dent es­caped.

Po­lice said they found a pis­tol near Bap­tiste's body. Po­lice al­so say they found a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na, a white "pow­dery" sub­stance stance and spent 5.56 shells.

How­ev­er, speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Sun­day morn­ing, one of Bap­tiste's rel­a­tives in­sist­ed she did not know him to be be a crim­i­nal.

She not­ed that Bap­tiste worked at a spice and clove stall at the Tu­na­puna Mar­ket to sup­port him­self and was con­cerned about him drift­ing to­wards a group of young men she did not know.

She said the young men were un­em­ployed. She urged him to be care­ful.

"I'm not ly­ing he start­ed to lime with peo­ple who are not work­ing peo­ple. I used to ask him, 'You work­ing and they aren't work­ing, that is two dif­fer­ent lan­guage you all speak­ing, what could they be telling you to have you so com­fort­able to fit in?' He used to say he have his head on his shoul­ders and that he wasn't stu­pid."

The rel­a­tive said she no­ticed that Bap­tiste did not come straight home af­ter work­ing in the mar­ket and of­ten stopped to lime and speak with friends, some­thing she was in­creas­ing­ly con­cerned about.

She said this led to her or­gan­is­ing an ap­point­ment for him to ap­ply for his Pass­port and US Visa for him to vis­it rel­a­tives abroad.

The rel­a­tive added that she did not know who was in the car with her son at the time of the shoot­ing, but knew who the own­er of the car was.

She said she has not heard from any­one who was in the ve­hi­cle or the own­er of the ve­hi­cle as of Sun­day morn­ing.

"Every­body who came back alive, I nev­er saw their face, I nev­er got a phone call or mes­sage just word of mouth," She said. "I know the per­son who own the ve­hi­cle and I haven't seen the per­son yet, but I know who­ev­er he went with is alive and he (Bap­tiste) is dead, the youngest."

The rel­a­tive said Bap­tiste at­tend­ed San Juan Boys RC School be­fore join­ing the Ser­vol vo­ca­tion­al school in San Juan but left the pro­gramme af­ter a falling out with an­oth­er stu­dent. 

She said Bap­tiste was part of a sou sou and was sav­ing to buy ma­te­ri­als to build a house near the fam­i­ly's home.