THE mother of the 11-year-old boy, who was fatally shot in Laventille on Saturday, says she wants revenge on the men who took her son from her.

"Right now I dealing with Moses' law here: is an eye for an eye...I want the mother of them men and them who kill my son to cry like how I crying, you hear me."

In an interview with the Express yesterday, Keyzec Monroe said her son — a standard five pupil at the St Catherine's Private School in Pembroke Street, Port of Spain — "did not deserve to die like that" and wanted to see justice done.

"But I don't want the police to catch them because this justice system is (messed) up. They could be back on the streets again and if not, jail might be a relief for them," she said.

According to police reports, 11-year-old Kareem Alphonso was with friends Jacob Peters, 19, and Justin Abraham, 19, of Tobago, on the ground floor of Building One of the Dorata Street Planning in Laventille when a gunman approached the trio around 12.25 a.m. and opened fire.

Alphonso, the son of jailed murder accused Barry Alphonso, was shot in the neck, chest and head. He was taken to the Port of Spain General Hospital by officers of the North Eastern Division Task Force but subsequently died from his injuries.

Monroe said although she had three other children, Alphonso was her "baby".

"He was the only one who lived with me...I worked hard to take care of him and send him to private school, and lessons quite down in Freeport and make sure he had everything so he would turn out better, and look what happen to my child," she said.

Monroe said as it was the August vacation, Alphonso was staying with his stepmother on Dorata Street spending time with his brothers and sisters but usually lived with her on Church Street.

"He was a good child, a lil miserable, but all boys are miserable at that age. He never do anything to anybody," she said.

Spewing profanities towards the men that took her child, Monroe said Alphonso tried to run away, but the shooters just could not have that.

"They came here to those other boys, and after they shoot them, they shoot my son as he tried to run up the stairs because all the shots are from the back...but them fellas who take my child, they will pay," she said. Alphonso's funeral takes place tomorrow, according to Muslim rites.