The country is deteriorating morally because parents and by extension the communities are not training their children to do what is right and shun what isn’t.
This was the message delivered to a handful of Gonzales residents who showed up for the procession from St Andrew Lane, where 12-year-old Yakini Charles was shot Tuesday, to Wesleyan Holiness Church, Belmont Circular Road, Belmont.
Addressing the gathering, mostly women and children, was Gonzales resident Genevieve “Aunty Jenny” Daniel.
Daniel said that parents needed to stop being hypocritical and playing the blame game when they too facilitated wrongdoing by having guns and drugs in their homes. She said that if children were not taught the right things they would grow and do what was wrong.
“It must start with love and respect and unity. If you know a gunman talk to him, show him where he is going wrong and stop compromising. Don’t have drugs in your house and say he bad he selling drugs, let us get real. I born and grow in Gonzales. My son was shot here, I born and grow here and I will die here,” Daniel said before the procession began.
During the procession, led by Charles’ grandmother Lucille Layne, children were seen wearing jerseys with a photo of the Tranquility Secondary School Form One student printed on it. They along with their parents sang hymns and gospel songs, holding signs that read “No More Killing,” “We Tired Cry” and “Right Now We Cyah Think”.
At the church mourners comforted each other as every five minutes there was an outburst.
His aunt Amatulah Charles, who read the eulogy, said she wished the acronym RIP meant Return If Possible, as she recalled her last conversation with her nephew.
Charles said before her nephew left for school he asked her how he looked in his school shirt and he was told that he looked great. Relatives told the T&T Guardian earlier this week that on arrival at school the 12-year-old was heckled by friends who told him that his shirt looked like a parachute. Charles was killed around 8.30 am, while on his way to his Pitman Lane, Gonzales, home to change his shirt.
“The only justice I want is from God, whatever he choose, nothing else. My message to the shooter is because you had nothing to do half past eight in the morning with your life you take this child own,” Charles said.
The Ministry of Education said young Charles was not sent back home because of a breach in the school’s uniform code.
The reason Charles was not in school was confirmed by his father Saad Charles, at the end of the funeral service.
The father of four said his message to the nation was to listen to their children since his son was reaching out to him but he did not listen.
Saad was referring to his son telling him that he found the shirt too big, but his father chided him saying that he was going to school to learn and not for looks.
According to police reports, Charles was heading back to his Pitman Lane, Gonzales, home around 8.30 am when he was shot in the back along St Andrew Lane, Gonzales.
He ran along Olton Road after being shot but collapsed and was taken to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital by a truck driver who saw him lying on the roadway. Charles died while being treated.