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  • Unsafe any and everywhere

    Unsafe any and everywhere
    Geof Brown
    Friday, December 21, 2007


    I never thought this column would ever come to the place where my topic is the pervading sense of lack of safety, a place to which we have come in this country. And it is hardly a topic to raise at this time in the season of goodwill.

    Geof Brown
    But we do ourselves little good by hiding our heads in the sands of illusion, ostrich-like, when stark reality stares us in the face. It is by facing the truth about our state that we may help to galvanise our collective will to take remedial action. Jamaica has never felt so unsafe, in my personal experience. And I am echoing the same sentiment of what I believe is the sense of the vast majority of Jamaicans.
    Front-page news in one of yesterday's daily newspapers tells of at least three doctors being robbed at Tangerine Medical Centre, an upscale facility in what used to be the relatively safe almost sacrosanct location uptown.

    At the same location, several staff have been robbed at gunpoint. In addition, two technicians were abducted and taken - not to some inner-city lair - but to Paddington Terrace in Barbican, an uptown residential area, by any test. There the two were beaten and shot. They are now in hospital. One surmises they were beaten to extract inner-working information which would be useful for the further exploits of the robbers in their future forays.

    In another location which formerly would be a safe haven, two young women, students of the University of Technology (UTECH) returning from an end-of-term fete last week, were shot on the campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) One was killed and the other hospitalised in serious condition. They were not even robbed. An attending surgeon tells me that the shooter hailed the girls who were in a group, but the girls ran when they saw him reaching for a gun at his waist. The girls were promptly sprayed with bullets. I mention these two incidents because the popular perception is that such daring criminal gun incidents take place mainly in the inner-city areas of the capital city.

    Two weeks ago, a sergeant of police, travelling in uniform in a marked police car in Montego Bay, was shot with a high-powered weapon, dragged from his vehicle, further mutilated by bullets, his weapon and bullet-proof vest removed, and his body thrown into a gutter.

    Last week the chief suspect, with whom the stolen personal items of the dead sergeant were found, was himself gunned down by a police squad. Who was he? The reports say he was a 15-year-old boy. Where was he located? Not, as you might think, in some inner-city hideout. No, it was in a fine, upscale home in the usually quiet town of Moneague in the parish of St Ann.

    The barefacedness of the new crop of youthful gunmen is astounding. No longer do they tend to operate under the cover of darkness. In fact, there have been several instances of gunmen stalking their quarry and shooting them in crowded areas. In one case, it was in the crowd watching a football match. In the case of the sergeant mentioned above, the deed was committed in front of many witnesses who were up and about before 9:00 am.

    Of another sort are the robberies taking place in residential areas by daring burglars who break into homes with seeming impunity. On my own quiet street in the Hope Pastures area of the Kingston and St Andrew suburb, a burglar broke a window, fished out the house keys from an inner table and then robbed several rooms in the household while the residents slept.

    He even went into the master bedroom and robbed wallets, cell phones and other personal items on both sides of the bed on which the owner/couple slept. It is believed that this is the same daring burglar who removed both my wallet and my cellphone from my pockets while I dozed in my home office. Hardly a home on the street has been spared. He has robbed my home on at least three occasions, despite the prominent sign on the front gate naming the security firm which guards my home. I have encountered him face to face in the house as he carried out his daring house search.

    That kind of burglar is reminiscent of the old-style cat burglar who was a danger mostly to himself. But now my neighbours and myself no longer dismiss that kind of unarmed thief as a nuisance. Guns have become so prevalent in Jamaica that street boys who can't afford the next meal may have one.

    So no longer can one rely on the burglar being unarmed. Let us recognise what is happening. Between some unscrupulous politicians (documented in studies), some inner-city dons (reliably reported) and some popular "culcha" musicians ( heard in performance exhorting violence and reliably reported), guns are flowing freely into the country and falling into the wrong hands. The illegal drug trade feeds the exchange, and turf wars between rival gangs complete the picture.

    Thus no one is assuredly safe anywhere anytime irrespective of status or location. How will this country be saved?

    browngeof@hotmail.com or geofbrown07@gmail.com
    "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

  • #2
    [Of another sort are the robberies taking place in residential areas by daring burglars who break into homes with seeming impunity. On my own quiet street in the Hope Pastures area of the Kingston and St Andrew suburb, a burglar broke a window, fished out the house keys from an inner table and then robbed several rooms in the household while the residents slept]

    I have to wonder if this is the same person who committed the crime at my relative home in Hope Pastures some years ago. In that case a bamboo was used to fish the keys from a table through a louver window.
    Life is a system of half-truths and lies, opportunistic, convenient evasion.”
    - Langston Hughes

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Karl View Post
      In another location which formerly would be a safe haven, two young women, students of the University of Technology (UTECH) returning from an end-of-term fete last week, were shot on the campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) One was killed and the other hospitalised in serious condition. They were not even robbed. An attending surgeon tells me that the shooter hailed the girls who were in a group, but the girls ran when they saw him reaching for a gun at his waist. The girls were promptly sprayed with bullets. I mention these two incidents because the popular perception is that such daring criminal gun incidents take place mainly in the inner-city areas of the capital city.
      I don't believe this shooting took place on any campus.


      BLACK LIVES MATTER

      Comment


      • #4
        funny you'd say that, a similar robbery occured at my mom's friend house in boscobel st, mary 3 yrs ago while everyone sleeping...
        'to get what we've never had, we MUST do what we've never done'

        Comment


        • #5
          There is no WILL on the part of Jamaican leadership. This lack of will is nothing new.

          I read where the new police chief is highly admired for his rhetoric. I am into DEEDS not WORDS.

          Seems like the "cancer" of Kingston (and MoBay) has metastasize to all the parishes
          The only time TRUTH will hurt you...is if you ignore it long enough

          HL

          Comment


          • #6
            gimme a link nuh man. How you a gwaan like road runner so?

            845 266 6813
            • Don't let negative things break you, instead let it be your strength, your reason for growth. Life is for living and I won't spend my life feeling cheated and downtrodden.

            Comment


            • #7
              Assasin roots...I deh pon the husslings since the beginning of this week. It's the bizzy season.

              We MUST sit and have even a soda for the chrissmuss.

              I will call you later.

              Chussss mi.
              The only time TRUTH will hurt you...is if you ignore it long enough

              HL

              Comment


              • #8
                it seems like them coulda be some damn good fishermen instead of actually robbing people.
                • Don't let negative things break you, instead let it be your strength, your reason for growth. Life is for living and I won't spend my life feeling cheated and downtrodden.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Look who's talking now

                  Sunday, December 23, 2007


                  Dear Editor,
                  When we hear folks, especially PNP stalwarts, calling the new government a failure after its first 100 days in office, we wonder what has happened to honour and integrity in Jamaica.

                  When one even looks at the statistics provided with regard to crime, especially 2007 compared to 2005, we wonder if the PNP has any shame at all! In January 2007, there were 149 murders - the PNP was in charge! And looking at the statistics for 2005, in every month the murder stats paled, and made us wonder... Look who is talking now, after over 18 years in power!
                  The JLP has just taken over and a new police commissioner appointed, therefore we ought to remember that it takes time to implement change. A new solicitor general has not even been installed as yet!
                  On the matter of Daryl Vaz versus Abe Dabdoub, a Jamaican just has to fill out his/her passport form, get it notarised (signed by a JP in Jamaica) and pay the required fee to get their passport. It is the same criteria and or processes that obtain in USA, although much more efficient than in Jamaica!
                  My wife is American and one of my daughters is American, so take it from the horse's mouth; it goes just like that.
                  No one born in America or who is of American parentage has to 'swear' to get their passport. Being born in America, like in Jamaica, only requires a particular evidence as proof for such documents, without any swearing. Argument done!

                  Wilfred Gray
                  ggraywillie@hotmail.com

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