‘Informa fi ded’? Then let’s all become informers! Certainly, what happened in Hayes last week was not the first such brutal acts committed by criminals in Jamaica...We still have vivid recollections of the July 1993 murders by gunmen of five-year-old Audrianna Collins, seven-year-old Lamar Mitchell, and 65-year-old Harold Hines in Hannah Town

Tuesday, April 21, 2015  

WHAT manner of evil is this stalking our beloved country? What, we ask, could have been going through the minds of the beasts — for they are certainly not fit to be called humans — who so brutally ended the lives of three teenaged boys and a man in Hayes, Clarendon, last week? The country was, to say the least, shocked by the murders of 14-year-old Raymond Givans, 14-year-old Ricardo Briscoe, 16-year-old Alex Turner, and 35-year-old Marquis Hamilton.

But this vicious act has also triggered anger among Jamaicans which, we believe, demonstrates that we have not become numbed by the mindless violence and bloodshed that have, for too long, plagued this country.

Certainly, what happened in Hayes last week was not the first such brutal acts committed by criminals in Jamaica. We still have vivid recollections of the July 1993 murders by gunmen of five-year-old Audrianna Collins, seven-year-old Lamar Mitchell, and 65-year-old Harold Hines in Hannah Town; the October 2002 killings of 15- year-old Shanique Reynolds and three-yearold twins Chavelle and Sharon Malcolm, who were shot dead and their home in Rema firebombed; as well as the terrifying ordeal of 10- year-old Sasha Brown, 25-year-old Janice Brown, 60-year-old Gerald Brown and his 50- year-old wife Dorcas, whom gunmen prevented from fleeing their house after they sprayed it with bullets then set it on fire in October 2005 in the Maxfield Avenue area of St Andrew.

What is most unfortunate is the fact that in many of these cases the perpetrators have been allowed to escape punishment because witnesses are afraid to come forward.

We can’t continue that way if we hope to create a better society. We can’t continue to feed the “informa fi dead” culture if we want to build our country on the ideals of justice and truth as stated in our National Anthem.

Someone, we hold, must have seen what happened in Hayes last week. We don’t believe that at 9:30 pm — the approximate time of the murders — the streets in that community were empty of residents. more