(Trinidad Express) Why was 12-year-old Adrian Richards hunted down and killed?

Was it a case of mistaken identity?

Was it because of a problem at school?

Was it because of gang warfare in his neighbourhood?

So many questions but no one knows for sure.

In an area known for its high murder rate, Laventillians are asking themselves what caused someone to walk up to this particular pre-teen on Sunday night, pursue him and pump four rounds into his back.

As far as they are concerned, all he was guilty of was his passion for drums through the Mawasi Experience and going to church.

Shortly before 8.50 p.m. on Sunday, the pupil of the Morvant-Laventille Secondary School was dropped off along the Old St Joseph Road, Laventille, near his mother’s Williams Street house.

He had just returned from Penal where he had done some drumming on behalf of his church, the Corpus Christi RC Church. He reportedly saw his friend and wanted to talk to him. Although warned about crime in the area he apparently felt comfortable being so close to home.

His great-grandmother, Ruby Baptiste, said she heard several gunshots near her house that night and immediately became concerned about the boy who still had not returned home. It was only when she ventured out she was told what happened and she found out it was Richards who was murdered.

Besson Street police said the gunman walked up to Richards and his friend. Richard ran off clutching his cell phone which was ringing at the time. He kept ending the calls as he ran for his life.

He jumped a wall and ran into someone’s house. He fell between two chairs face down.

The gunman came over him and fired four shots, killing him instantly.

The Express visited his mother, Allison Richards, on Monday morning at her home.

The child would have celebrated his 13th birthday on Thursday, she said.

She had planned to bake him a cake because with her two other children it is all she could have afforded.

“What it is he do anybody?” she asked. “He’s a mere boy just trying to find himself. He goes to church and beats drums … I don’t know, I don’t know,” she cried.

She continued though that “he had been threatened by some other child but I don’t know if this boy would have gone the distance”.

So concerned was his mother about these threats she reported the matter to the Besson Street Police and was also trying to get him out of the Morvant-Laventille Secondary School.

About the unknown person who killed her son, Richards had this to say: “The Lord will deal with allyuh, whoever allyuh is. Nobody child deserve to die like that. I just hope when night come allyuh cyar sleep and will see my son’s face anytime yuh lie down.”