By FRANCIS JOSEPH
Imagine reporting your teenaged son missing, only to find out that he was shot and killed during a home invasion.
When Victor Hamilton did not see his son Javon Hamilton, return home last Thursday night, his family reported the matter to the police. The Hunters Search and Rescue Team, also got into the act, beginning the search.
But good news turned to bad news when Javon’s family saw his dead photograph and identified him as the person shot and killed by a prison officer in Freeport on Thursday night.
In an interview with the media on Sunday, Hamilton apologized to the prison officer, saying he harbours no resentment but cannot understand how his only son became involved in a home invasion. His friends took him but did not bring him back.
Hamilton described his son as a hardworking young man who dreamed of becoming a soldier and was actively building a future for himself.
Javon had been reported missing after leaving home to visit his girlfriend. Days later, the family learned he was the unidentified man fatally shot during an alleged home invasion in Freeport, where four armed men reportedly held a teenage girl and her grandmother at gunpoint.
Hamilton said his son was not known to stay out late and generally remained close to home except when visiting his girlfriend in Petit Café, Princes Town. When Javon failed to return on Thursday night, Hamilton said he repeatedly called him but received no response.
The family filed a missing persons report with the San Fernando CID and circulated flyers bearing Javon’s photograph. Hamilton said it was through efforts to identify the unidentified body that the family eventually learned of his son’s death.
Hamilton said he had never seen signs that Javon was associating with people who could lead him into criminal activity.
According to Hamilton, his son had also completed recruitment testing for the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment and had signed up. He keeps wondering how his son ended up in Freeport and to be shot.
He offered an apology to the prison officer, but still wants to know the circumstances of the fatal shooting.
THE KILLING
A prison officer shot and killed an armed intruder during a home invasion in Freeport on Thursday night.
While his three accomplices escaped empty-handed, the suspect was later carried out of the home in a body bag by undertakers.
The house is divided into two sections, with the prison officer, his wife and their two children living in one section, while his 71-year-old mother-in-law and other relatives live in the other.
The incident happened shortly after 7.30 pm, when the four intruders reportedly entered the property.
At the home, the prison officer’s 47-year-old wife recalled the terrifying ordeal on the condition of anonymity.
She said the bandits first forced their way into the section of the house where her mother lives.
“They pull open the door like they living here,” she said.
The men demanded her mother’s phone, but she told them it was a TV remote. At one point, one of the men allegedly pointed a gun at her head and ordered her to get on the ground.
She refused, and the intruder then told her to sit down and remain quiet. The men searched the rooms.
The woman said they also pointed a gun at the head of her 16-year-old niece after she refused to give him her phone, causing her to scream.
Hearing the commotion, the wife said she walked across the house and through a doorway, where she saw one of the men approaching.
Her 50-year-old husband also came out to investigate.
“And when he see the fellow coming, he said, ‘move aside’, and that is when the fellow kicked down the door because I had closed it in. As he came in, my husband just fire, and he fall down right there.”
