Tears flowed as the family and colleagues of PC Anson Benjamin stood at his bedside and watched as he took his final breath at the San Fernando General Hospital yesterday.
Even though doctors said they did everything medically possible to save his life, the gunshot wound he suffered to his head while responding to a robbery attempt at the Chao Yong Supermarket in Ste Madeleine on Monday had left him brain dead.
The 40-year-old officer from Pleasantville, who celebrated 16 years in the Police Service on March 1, was pronounced dead at 11.15 am in the Intensive Care Unit.
His sister, Marlene Benjamin, said policing was her brother's passion and as a child he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father, the late and retired Cpl Daniel Francis.
Speaking at the hospital yesterday, she said it was only the life support machine that had kept him breathing over the last two days as his lungs had stopped functioning.
“Doctors called us in last night and they sat us down and they explained everything to us,” Marlene Benjamin said.
“We were still hoping and praying and wishing he would pull through. Right now we are in denial. It was inevitable but we did not want to accept it.”
Benjamin’s wife, Cherry Ann Foster, had to leave the hospital to organise some documents at the time of the T&T Guardian’s visit. His body was taken to the Forensic Science Centre, St James, for an autopsy today.
Arion Benjamin, 21, the eldest of Benjamin’s five children, said his father was a man who always guided him and his siblings along the right path. He said his father was the kind of parent who would go out of his way to ensure that his children were not left wanting. Sending a message to his father’s killers, he said although they may elude police, they could not escape God’s justice.
In a media release through the Public Affairs Unit of the T&T Police Service yesterday, acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams expressed his sadness over Benjamin’s passing.