Priest: Stop making excuses for crime

FATHER Clyde Harvey, officiating at yesterday’s funeral service for murdered Chaguanas businessman Gerard Punch, said Government’s vision of this country attaining developed-nation status by the year 2020 meant nothing if the public continued making excuses for the rampant level of crime and lawlessness plaguing the country.

“We must stop making excuses that crime and lawlessness happens in the United States, so who is we. That is not good enough, and if we cannot get out of this way of only making excuses, then 2020 means nothing to this country,” Fr Harvey thundered as he spoke to a packed congregation of mourners at Our Lady of Perpetual Help RC Church, Harris Promenade, San Fernando. He then called on the country to rise up spiritually and find the greater purpose and meaning of life. Punch, 36, the owner of Fotocraft and Cellular store at Centre Pointe Mall, Chaguanas, was one of three persons murdered on Monday night, hours after the polls for Local Government Elections had closed. Among those murdered that night was a 13-year-old girl, who was cut down in a hail of bullets by gunmen who apparently mistook her for someone else. Punch was shot by four bandits who tried and failed to force him to hand over money and the keys to his car. Up to late yesterday, police had not made any breakthrough in their investigations. At the funeral service, Punch’s weeping wife Shasmin fainted when she saw the coffin bearing her husband’s body being wheeled to the front of the church at the start of the service. Shasmin sat at the front pew with other close relatives. Punch’s mother, Pamela, and her two daughters Gabrielle and Allison quickly went to Shasmin’s aid when she collapsed and managed to revive her. Following the service the body was taken to Belgrove’s Funeral Home where Punch was cremated.