Less than two weeks be­fore po­lice of­fi­cer Shel­don Pe­ter­son was killed by an armed man out­side the gro­cery where he worked in Ari­ma, he ex­pressed fears about his per­son­al safe­ty, as he be­lieved too much-un­want­ed at­ten­tion was be­ing at­tract­ed to the busi­ness op­er­a­tions.

Po­lice said Pe­ter­son, 54, of Ari­ma, was killed by an armed man on Sat­ur­day, af­ter three ban­dits at­tempt­ed to rob the Awe­some Food and Drinks Su­per­mar­ket at Olton Road, Ari­ma, where he had been work­ing as a se­cu­ri­ty guard.

Dur­ing the in­ci­dent, Pe­ter­son moved to pro­tect those present in­side the gro­cery by draw­ing his per­son­al firearm and open­ing fire on the group of ban­dits, who then re­turned fire, hit­ting Pe­ter­son.

While he was ly­ing on the ground, one of the ban­dits picked up Pe­ter­son’s gun and fled with his ac­com­plices.

Pe­ter­son had been on sus­pen­sion from the TTPS since 2014, joint­ly charged with three oth­er of­fi­cers. They were ac­cused of tak­ing a quan­ti­ty of cash al­leged­ly be­long­ing to a Chi­nese busi­ness­man dur­ing a search of his prop­er­ty and had been wait­ing for the mat­ter to be­gin at the High Court.

Fol­low­ing Pe­ter­son’s mur­der on Mon­day, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) of­fered a $20,000 re­ward for any in­for­ma­tion that could help solve his mur­der.

TTPSS­WA pres­i­dent, ASP Gideon Dick­son, said Pe­ter­son had died a hero, pro­tect­ing those around him.

Pe­ter­son’s rel­a­tives yes­ter­day said they wel­comed the move.

“We are okay with that,” they said.

In­di­cat­ing they too want­ed the per­pe­tra­tors caught and brought to jus­tice, Pe­ter­son’s rel­a­tives said he was a man who used, “to live in peace with every­body.”

A fe­male rel­a­tive, who asked not to be named, re­called Pe­ter­son as­sist­ing a cus­tomer in the last week to pay for his gro­ceries af­ter his items ex­ceed­ed the amount of mon­ey he had in his pock­et.

Pe­ter­son was a fa­ther of four chil­dren, aged 30, 27, 21 and 11; and the grand­fa­ther of a four-year-old boy.

“He was a per­son who could make you laugh, no mat­ter what you were go­ing through,” an­oth­er rel­a­tive said.

An­oth­er added, “You could call on him and he was al­ways there. He was a gen­uine­ly good per­son.”

Pe­ter­son’s fu­ner­al will take place to­mor­row (Fri­day) at 10 am at the Bethel World Out­reach Min­istries, Bethel Av­enue, Ari­ma.