Ker­ry Dwight Baird turned his back on a life of crime fol­low­ing the birth of his daugh­ter six years ago, and rel­a­tives be­lieve this de­ci­sion may have led to his death on the week­end.

They made the claim out­side the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day.

Rel­a­tives, who asked not to be named, said the move to walk the straight and nar­row had not gone down well with the crowd Baird pre­vi­ous­ly ran with.

Sad­dened over what she claimed was a gen­er­al lack of love, a fe­male rel­a­tive said, “Par­ents need to show love to their chil­dren. Love is the an­swer be­cause if from small they don’t know what love is, they won’t have love to give when they get old­er. So love is the an­swer and that is what we are lack­ing...love, care, and com­pas­sion for each oth­er.

“This is what we are lack­ing and it must start with the gen­er­a­tion now, for us to have a bet­ter fu­ture.”

Baird, 34, was shot mul­ti­ple times last Sat­ur­day while on du­ty at the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion, Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain.

The fa­ther of one worked as a se­cu­ri­ty guard and lived at Fa­ti­ma Trace, Laven­tille.

Rel­a­tives lament­ed that Baird’s daugh­ter cel­e­brat­ed her birth­day on April 1 and days lat­er had now been left fa­ther­less.

A griev­ing woman said, “Every sin­gle thing he did and had was for that lit­tle girl.”

Rel­a­tives said while Baird had not been scared of his past, they spec­u­lat­ed that his re­fusal to con­tin­ue hang­ing with peo­ple from his past could have been what led to his un­time­ly demise.

“It was en­vy,” one woman said, adding, “Re­fus­ing to link with cer­tain guys and be­cause he cut them off, they want to get rid of him.

“He was show­ing them, I choose to work and make mon­ey and what alyuh chose to do...I not on that, so he sep­a­rate him­self from that and since he do that, they see him as the en­e­my.”

Fight­ing back her tears, an­oth­er rel­a­tive said, “All he want­ed to do was change his life.”

Rel­a­tives said Baird’s killing had again brought thoughts of mi­grat­ing to the fore­front as they la­belled the crime sit­u­a­tion as out of con­trol.

“It hurts. Peo­ple don’t care about life any more,” one said.

Baird would have last seen all his sib­lings around New Year’s Day, when they all got to­geth­er to ring in the hol­i­day and spend time with each oth­er

One rel­a­tive re­called speak­ing with Baird two days ago and that he had left her sev­er­al voice notes promis­ing to call her back.
She said the “hus­tler” was not known for sit­ting still, as he was al­ways about earn­ing a dol­lar to look af­ter his daugh­ter.

In­di­cat­ing that Baird had al­ways been pro­tec­tive of his fam­i­ly but more so his nieces and nephews, the oth­er fe­male rel­a­tive begged, “It don’t make no sense all. You killing one an­oth­er but life so sweet.”

Ques­tion­ing where the love had gone, she added, “The peo­ple that act­ing out now don’t know love. It is mon­sters out here that have no mer­cy and com­pas­sion...they don’t know love and you can’t give some­thing you don’t have.”