Father’s cry for justice as he awaits son’s final journey

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca­s­[email protected]

As rel­a­tives gath­ered in grief and si­lence, Shawn Black­burn stood on the road­side car­ry­ing a bur­den no par­ent should ever have to bear—the loss of a child.

Wait­ing for the ar­rival of his son’s body at their Spring­vale, Clax­ton Bay home on Sat­ur­day, Black­burn fought back emo­tion as he spoke about the death of his son, 20-year-old san­i­ta­tion work­er De­shawn Joseph, who was crushed by a re­vers­ing garbage truck while on du­ty in Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni, on Tues­day night.

“I just want to bury my son, that's all I want to do,” Black­burn said, his voice heavy with an­guish. “But I'm go­ing through this process. I want to bury my son, and when I'm done here, I want to deal with it.”

The griev­ing fa­ther in­sist­ed he would pur­sue jus­tice through le­gal chan­nels, even as he strug­gled to come to terms with the tragedy.

“I am go­ing through the le­gal process. I want jus­tice for my son now,” he said. “I am not tak­ing that just so.”

Stand­ing near the lo­ca­tion where his son had re­port­ed­ly been in­volved in an ar­gu­ment with an­oth­er man be­fore the in­ci­dent, Black­burn re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that Joseph’s death was sim­ply a trag­ic ac­ci­dent.

“This was no ac­ci­dent, fam­i­ly. Any­body who has eyes to see, go see that. I want jus­tice for my son.”

Joseph, who had worked for a Clax­ton Bay-based san­i­ta­tion com­pa­ny for ap­prox­i­mate­ly two years, died while col­lect­ing garbage along Ra­goonath Street short­ly af­ter 9 pm. CCTV footage cap­tured the mo­ments be­fore the tragedy, show­ing him jump­ing from the rear of a re­vers­ing truck, walk­ing briefly and bend­ing to pick up garbage be­fore be­ing struck and run over. He died at the scene.

His death has left a young fam­i­ly shat­tered. Joseph is sur­vived by his girl­friend, who is four months preg­nant with their child.

Ear­li­er on Thurs­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to Joseph’s rel­a­tives, de­scrib­ing his death as heart­break­ing.

“It is tru­ly heart­break­ing that a young man went out to earn an hon­est liv­ing to care for his fam­i­ly and nev­er re­turned home,” the Prime Min­is­ter said in a state­ment, not­ing that he had left be­hind loved ones who are now fac­ing an unimag­in­able loss.

The dri­ver of the garbage truck has main­tained that the in­ci­dent was ac­ci­den­tal, say­ing Joseph was not sup­posed to dis­mount while the ve­hi­cle was mov­ing and that he had no way of know­ing he was be­hind the truck.