Tommy Baker’s dad, mum advise remnant gang members to surrender
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Tommy Baker’s dad, mum advise remnant gang members to surrender
PORT MORESBY: Tommy Maeva Baker’s dad and mum have appealed to remnants
of their son’s gang to lay down their arms and surrender to the police.
“The death of our son (Tommy) should be the end of the ongoing criminal activities in Milne Bay,” they lamented in an exclusive interview with The National.
The remnant gang members, especially their new leader
Eugene Pakalasi, should heed their advice before they end up facing the same
fate as Tommy.
Read on what Tommy’s parents have to say as published by The National:
Surrender
January 6, 2022The
NationalMain Stories
By MIRIAM ZARRIGA
BAKER and Edna Maeva have appealed to remnants of their son’s gang to
lay down their firearms and surrender to the police.
“The death of our son (Tommy) should be the end of the ongoing criminal
activities in Milne Bay,” they lamented in an exclusive interview with The
National.
Tommy, a father of six, was 36 when he was killed in a shoot-out with police
last Thursday night at the Viole Culvert near Kwaini settlement, a few minutes’
drive out of Alotau.
While police investigations are ongoing into the shooting, police remain on
high alert because of several threats made to police by the gang now led by
Eugene Pakalasi.
“The situation in Alotau now is something that worries us. We want the members
to lay down their firearms and stop the criminal activities.
“We want peace to prevail in the province, especially in Alotau,” Baker and
Edna stressed.
Both told The National that they would be writing a letter to
the police to release their son’s body without a post-mortem conducted so that
they could give their son a proper burial.
“What happened has happened and we want no more done to his body. We want to
take him home to Cape Vogel.
“He (Tommy) told us that if anything happened to him, he was to be buried on
his mother’s land,” Baker said.
Baker said: “Strong and stoic is how I would describe Tommy.”
He paused and said: “Tommy was independent and very friendly to everyone. We
raised all four boys in a Christian home. Tommy was our third son and was the
quiet and independent child. He did everything himself.”
Baker is a former Kiap and Edna is a former Rabaraba Rural local level
government office officer.
“He had two best friends who he maintained friendship with as they grew older.
Tommy, as a child attended Alotau International School and from there, I moved
him to Alotau Primary School then Cameron Secondary School,” Baker said.
“During his early years at Alotau Primary School and during the holidays, Tommy
took a job selling the Eastern Star newspaper and when asked what he wanted to
be, Tommy often said he wanted to be a doctor.
“His interest for science took off when I brought a book on science back from
Australia. Tommy would pour over the contents and study all the experiments and
during a presentation, he rebuilt an experiment for his group and they
presented well.
“Tommy excelled in Cameron Secondary School. But in 2005 while doing his Grade
11, he started mixing with the wrong group and he dropped out of school.”
Whatever happened that year, Baker said he would not speak about it.
“When he took the road leading to crime and became the subject of various
investigations, Edna tried to talk to him,” Baker said.
“But Tommy was adamant and asked that we do not try to change his mind. All we
could do was pray.
“He would tell me I was not to talk to him about the law, he knew what the law
was.”
Both parents travelled several times to Alotau to speak to Tommy, however,
there was no changing his mind.
Edna suddenly spoke up: “I turned him in once to the police.”
“I did not like what was happening and I left our home and went up to what is
known as Red Hills,” she said.
“When I called home and asked who was at home, they said Tommy and five other
boys were at home. I prayed and I picked up the phone and made the call. After
everything that happened that evening, I returned home the next day.
“Everyone told me that Tommy said someone called, saying police were on the way
and I had turned him in, and he had to leave. After that, he stopped talking to
me for a while.
“When we finally spoke, he stood outside the gate of our home and asked why I
gave my womb away,” Edna recalled.
“Straight away, I knew what scripture that was. Children are inheritance from
God, that is from Psalms, from then I told him, ‘son you win, I lose, from then
on you have nothing to do with me and I have nothing to do with you’.” That was
in 2014.
“In 2016, I left Alotau and I have never returned to Alotau, and whenever I
wanted to return, something always happened.”
“But he (Tommy) was a good child, his upbringing was different, I do not
understand what happened, but I knew he would never listen to either his father
or I, especially when it came to the law.”
The parents said Baker even travelled to Alotau in January 2019 after the
shoot-out and burning down of several houses in Misima Police Barracks, but
Tommy could not meet Baker.
“In 2021, after the shoot-out and burning of the family house, I returned to
Alotau, but still, I could not change his mind. When we got the news of his
death, we were in Gulf,” Baker said.
“His (Tommy’s) life of crime is something he did on his own. We will never
speak of it.
“We will remember him as he was, our son, brother, nephew, and importantly, a
father to our grandchildren.”
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