An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Kel­lon Beard cried yes­ter­day, as he re­called feel­ing aban­doned by his fa­ther, who turned away from him as he was be­ing at­tacked by a group of young men on Mon­day while walk­ing to his home at Sea Lots West.

Peel­ing off the plas­ter from his left ear as he point­ed to the two ar­eas which fea­tured stitch­es, the 22-year-old said his fa­ther, who lives in Sea Lots Cen­tral, watched on as he was hit in the head with a glass bot­tle and nev­er at­tempt­ed to help.

Re­fer­ring to the in­ci­dent on Mon­day as a group of res­i­dents walked home from the J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions, Beard said, “They was pelt­ing some of my friends and them from down here who I does be lim­ing with and who does show me love.”

Ad­mit­ting he had stopped to talk with his aunt, who lives in Sea Lots Cen­tral, Beard said, “My cousin walk out the yard and pelt a big stone but I dodge it.”

He said he ran be­hind the rel­a­tive and was struck by an­oth­er as­sailant with the glass bot­tle.

De­spite his or­deal, Beard said the at­tacks on the women and chil­dren who live in Sea Lots West were bad and dis­re­spect­ful.

He said he was all about build­ing him­self up and im­prov­ing his life gen­er­al­ly but the cur­rent flare-up in com­mu­ni­ty vi­o­lence was jeop­ar­dis­ing that.

He claimed, “They pass­ing through any track and at­tack­ing yuh. You don’t even know when it go­ing to hap­pen.”

Deny­ing the at­tack were gang-re­lat­ed, he ex­plained, “The younger ones like my­self might have a lit­tle beef. Some of them mightn’t be in the beef but when they see them out there, they com­ing round them, hit­ting them big stone, slap­ping them up, down to an age­able woman get slap up.”

Re­fer­ring to the po­lice pres­ence in the com­mu­ni­ty yes­ter­day, he said, “If they wasn’t here, it woul­da be worse.”

Tim­o­thy Grant, who al­so suf­fered a frac­tured jaw, cuts to his left shoul­der and back, and a burst head dur­ing Mon­day’s in­ci­dent, al­so ques­tioned the sense­less acts of vi­o­lence tak­ing place among per­sons who were sup­posed to be unit­ed.

Say­ing he was al­ways out help­ing per­sons de­spite which area in the com­mu­ni­ty they lived in, Grant said he ini­tial­ly stopped to as­sist his aunt Eleanor Grant, who was be­ing as­sault­ed on Mon­day.

“They try to rob me, take way my keys and all kin­da thing, take meh mon­ey,” he said.

Hav­ing lived in Sea Lots his en­tire life, Grant (T) said he was sad­dened to see what was hap­pen­ing now.

“The youths and them have no con­trol,” he said.

“Par­ents hav­ing chil­dren and cyar deal with their own chil­dren be­cause the chil­dren re­al dis­re­spect­ful too.”

Grant (T) said par­ents need to stop talk­ing, as the youths were not lis­ten­ing, and the time for ac­tion had come.

He urged, “Yuh just had­da pray right now.”

Deny­ing he was fright­ened go­ing for­ward, he said every­one, in­clud­ing the old and young as well as ex­tend­ed fam­i­lies and god­par­ents, had a role to play in help­ing to bring Sea Lots back to be­ing a sin­gle, peace-lov­ing com­mu­ni­ty.