A Gov­ern­ment min­is­ter is lament­ing the coun­try’s crime sit­u­a­tion af­ter a close rel­a­tive was gunned down on Sat­ur­day morn­ing.

Moru­ga/Table­land Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Michelle Ben­jamin, de­scribed the death of her un­cle, Mar­vin Hamil­ton, as a sense­less act of vi­o­lence. In a Face­book post on Sat­ur­day night, Ben­jamin said Hamil­ton was her fa­ther’s younger broth­er.

“A fa­ther, a son, a friend, my un­cle, lost his life in a sense­less act of vi­o­lence... Got the call since 7 am, and even now, at 10 pm, I’m still ask­ing my­self why. Why was my un­cle mur­dered? Why does an­oth­er fam­i­ly have to en­dure this kind of pain?”