Patricia Miller’s condemnation of police for killing her teenage son and his friend during an armed robbery last Friday has drawn the wrath of Senior Supt of Central Division Johnny Abraham. Speaking in a telephone interview yesterday, Abraham said while he sympathised with Miller’s pain, the police had no choice but to shoot the robbers who engaged them in a gun battle at Carlsen Field, Chaguanas.
Tishawn Miller, 16, of Circular Road, Crown Trace, Enterprise, and his accomplice Devon Ferguson, 21, of Point Pleasant Road, were both shot dead, while two other suspects, aged 18 and 21, were arrested during the incident.
Reacting to statements from Miller that her son was no bandit, Abraham said too often, children go astray because they fail to take advantage of the opportunities available to them. Abraham said there were ten police youth clubs in central Trinidad in which parents can enrol their children to deter them from engaging in criminal activity. “We are begging parents to bring their children in so that they could get guidance. Insp Terrence Williams has been working with youths and using sports as an alternative,” Abraham said.
He noted that more than 500 children are involved in the police youth club initiative. Abraham also defended the decision by his team to fire upon the group of men who held up a woman at gunpoint and robbed her of her purse. “When you have a smoking gun aimed at you, you have just a split second to decide whether you are killed or not,” Abraham said. He added that police put their lives on the line every day.
“We always hear people condemning the police when we shoot someone and they die, but who thinks about the victims who die when the robbers shoot them?” Abraham asked. He also warned businessmen not to withdraw large sums of cash without police protection.
“Anyone who has to do these financial transactions must call the police and we will arrange an officer to provide security for you,” Abraham said. Meanwhile, in an interview yesterday, Miller again said she found it hard to believe that her son was a thief. She said he never had clothes, brand name shoes or gold jewelry. “If he was thiefing he would have come home with money, but he always broken,” Miller said.
She added that she tried to get her son enrolled in Servol and other social programmes but he refused. She said, however, that he was delinquent and loved to fight. “He never like to see people taking advantage of others and he would fight a lot,” Miller said. She noted that two weeks before his death, the teenager told her he was not afraid to die.
“I told my son that I am seeing him dead and to go to church and stop following bad company. He told me that what is written in the Book will come to pass and if he had to dead young then nobody could stop that,” Miller said. She said God was in charge and had decided to take back her son’s life because of the kind of life he was living.