‘No bandit will stop me’

PAMELA NELSON, sister of slain policeman PC Derrick Nelson, said yesterday she wished her brother had listened to her the night of May 31, when he was shot and robbed of his firearm and other items at Milton Road, Couva. The 37-year-old officer, of Pasea Street, St Augustine, succumbed to his injuries Saturday morning at the San Fernando General Hospital. PC Nelson joined the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service in September of 1988 and at the time of his death, had been assigned bodyguard duties to High Court Judge Herbert Volney. At his home yesterday, Pamela said Nelson was home all of Saturday, May 31.  He then left late in the evening to pick up his two daughters, Jenna, 15, and Dernelle, 13, from cinema. Officer Nelson dropped his daughters at home, and around 8.30 pm, said he was going out. Pamela said she asked her younger brother not to go out because of certain things she read in the newspapers (a plot to kill a policeman in Valencia). “He said he was not letting any bandits keep him inside,” Pamela said. She added that she told him to “be safe” and offered him her cell phone since he did not have his. 
 
He refused the offer, telling Pamela that she would only harass him. She said she asked him where he was going, but that he did not say. “If he had listened to me...but then again, this could have happened any time,” she said. The rest is history, Pamela said, explaining that she will not question God’s actions, since doctors told her if her brother had survived, he would have had several complications. She said she did not want to make any assumptions until the police probe was over.  “I don’t know what the motive is and I have no leads. I have no idea what he was doing there,” she said. Pamela described her Tobago-born brother as a very dedicated and bubbly officer, who did almost everything for her.  “I will miss him. “He was my companion, my guardian and did everything for me but there will be no more of that now,” she said. She said he used to wake her up on mornings, go to the market and several other things. Pamela is also of the firm belief that the nurses and doctors at the San Fernando General Hospital did everything possible to save her brother’s life. “They briefed me on the extent of his injuries and told me what to expect. They never hid anything from me,” she said. Pamela said she was hoping for her brother’s condition to settle, before moving him to a nursing home, en route to a full recovery. She said the police also wanted to move her brother, but she said she did not want to make the wrong decision.

Saying that the police were 100 percent behind her brother, Pamela said she blames the incident on social problems affecting the country. “It is frightening,” she said, later appealing to members of the public to support the police, since she does not believe that the majority of the policemen are bad. Pamela said she would be taking care of her brother’s two daughters.  Asked how they were coping, Jenna said: “I have to be strong for him.”  And Dernelle, shrugging her shoulders with a shy smile, said: “I don’t know what to say.” The officer’s younger brother, Barry, said he blamed the youths for the crime situation and appealed to the Government of the day to help them. Barry said the youths are frustrated, since when they come for service at Government agencies, they are turned away, while “well-off” citizens are assisted.  He also said the crime problem was a political one. Both Pamela and Barry appealed to their brother’s killers to mend their ways.  They said the perpetrators may have gotten away with their act now, but that God will eventually deal with them. Meantime, investigators working on the case said they are yet to make arrests in the cop killing.  Sgt Burke of the Couva CID is continuing investigations.