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DEAD END: Funeral agency workers carry a gurney to the area in the forest off St Michael’s Road off St John’s Road in St Augustine on Thursday after four men were killed in a police-involved shooting. PHOTO BY ROGER JACOB – ROGER JACOB
The aunt of a man who was killed by police on Thursday is warning that gang life ends in two ways: jail or death.
Tevon Maynard was one of four men killed in a shooting with police investigating the kidnapping of doubles vendor Anisha Hosein. The mother of one was kidnapped on May 18 and freed on May 22.
Hours after she was freed, based on intelligence they received during their investigation, police went to a forested area at the end of St Michael’s Road off St John’s Road, St Augustine.
A shootout ensued and Maynard and three other men were all killed.
Relatives of the other men declined to speak with the media or to even confirm their identities on Friday.
Speaking with the media on Friday at the home where Maynard was raised, his aunt said she had cared for him as a child, but had not spoken to him for the past four years because of a family dispute.
“I haven’t seen him for years,” the aunt said.
“You always hear the police come looking for him, but they never want to say the reason. They coming by me, running in my place looking for Tevon.
“Tevon was no longer living here…for years now. But at the end of the day, I sorry for whatever happened to him,” said the woman who asked not to be identified. She said he came to live with her when he was a child after his mother struggled before deciding to go abroad to make a living.
The woman said she never expected Maynard to get involved in a life of crime.
“He never grow up like that. When he was under me, he was on the straight and narrow. It hurt me to hear the news yesterday (Thursday) about what happened. I bawl and cried.”
She said as he grew older, Maynard began to ignore her advice.
“You know, when (children) grow up, they turn and they want to do their own thing. You can’t speak to them. You can’t tell them, because they feel (you are) wrong, you understand?
“So you just have to leave them. If you’re trying to reach out to them, you can’t, because they’re not around for you to reach out to them.
“At the end of the day, he was still my nephew. Whatever Tevon do in his life until his death come along, is what he wanted to do. But he never grew up like that.”
The aunt said Maynard’s mother was able to make enough money to send cash for him and suggested this might be why he never felt the need to work.
“His mother used to send money for him from Tortola. She used to mind him. So when children getting things from abroad, they don’t want to work.” She said she spoke to him about his lifestyle choices.
Asked if she believes she could have done anything differently to alter the course of Maynard’s life, the aunt said, “I can’t say. My sisters and them must be feel I not hurting because whatever (family feud) happened, but like I said, I bawl and I cry yesterday, because it’s my nephew. At the end of the day, I mind that child!”
Maynard’s aunt urged other young people involved in a life of crime to “come to God” before it is too late.
