The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

A STABBING incident yesterday at Government High School has left an 11th grader dead and another student in serious condition in hospital.

The high school was placed on a lockdown after the altercation, interrupting examinations which were scheduled yesterday.

Assistant Superintendent Audley Peters told reporters that shortly after 1pm, police were called to GHS to investigate a stabbing incident involving students.

One student was pronounced dead at the campus while the other was taken to the hospital. Police are looking for the assailants who left the school after the attack. The deceased was identified by a relative as Kenm Paul, 15.

ASP Peters said: “The preliminary investigation revealed that two students were in the corridor having a conversation with one another when they were approached by two others who started an altercation. Edge tools were produced and two of those persons were stabbed. We do not know if the victims were the aggressors in this situation or if the victims or the aggressor were the ones who were stabbed.

“The persons who may have been involved in this scaled the school fence and left and went home, we believe. Our officers would have left the school and the leads that they would have, we are following those leads at this time and I believe in due course we should have those persons in custody.”

Last night, the deceased’s brother Stanley Paul remembered the teen as someone who was “good at sports” and wanted to study overseas and play basketball.

He said the family is in shock and has questions about who would attack the student.

“It’s shocking because neither me nor my mummy get to see him this morning before he gone to school,” Mr Paul said.

He said the boy’s father was the last relative to see him alive when he asked for lunch money before he went to school. Later, the family got the horrible news from friends that their relative had been attacked.

Mr Paul is now calling for more security at the school.

“They need to put more security at the school,” the boy’s brother said. “I don’t even know how they let someone with a knife in the school. Every morning you supposed to check the children to see if they brought any illegal weapons to the school.”

He is now grieving the death of his only brother.

“It shocked me because that’s the only brother I had that I grew up with. Growing up it was only me and him, we didn’t have cousins, uncles or whatever, it was only just us two.”

Meanwhile at the scene, emotions were high from concerned parents outside the school’s gates who felt they were getting very little information about what happened. One parent could be seen crying as she asked if her child was okay.

ASP Peters said police could have better informed parents.

“Our initial concern is for the scene itself,” he said “It may be a faux pas on our part for not warning or saying something to the parents at the gate. I personally take responsibility for that, but however we could not simply say something to them because everybody would want to know if that’s their child and I’m not here to say if this is your son and we have to wait for an identification of the next of kin. I could perhaps deal with it better at another occasion but at this one, this occasion, I take full responsibility for not informing them of what was going on on the inside.”

Education Minister Jeffrey Lloyd was also at the scene. He said he was advised on the way from a lunch break in Cabinet that there was a stabbing at the school and came immediately as well as the executive team including the director to investigate and find out exactly what happened.

He addressed the questions raised about campus safety.

“This is unfortunate but I wish parents and I wish the Bahamian people to know our schools are very safe and incidents of this kind are not a usual occurrence,” Mr Lloyd said.

“We do everything that we can, including the involvement of police on our campuses. We are very well equipped with the security officers throughout our various schools. Not only in the daytime, but over the course of the day, the evenings and in the night times.”

For his part, ASP Petes said police presence on the school has been fluid during the pandemic.

“Well during this COVID situation, the police presence on campuses were somewhat situational,” ASP Peters said. “We’re not always aware as to when and how... we’re coming to school and so we’ll revisit our presence (in) the school. Given the incident at hand, we were also aware that there were exams going and with exams going on limited persons were coming to school.”

ASP Peters could not say if the matter is gang-related or not, but one parent believed the incident was. The parent, who has children in the 11th grade, said the deceased is a friend of theirs. She said the students had been arguing for some time.

She explained: “This argument between my son, his adopted brothers, and other students started from weeks ago and they were threatening them in regards to being in a gang.

“I told them at the end of the day I don’t feel comfortable with them being in these things. They’re trying to start a rap group. They’re trying to get somewhere besides having an education and because they feel because of what they’re saying in their lyrics or how they’re trying to become famous it’s a problem.

“Also with who they are hanging around or being friends with that’s another problem. They’re also targeted for that. They assume they’re in the gang as well so problems arise. Arguments came out and that is when the stabbing happened. Mind you like I said, they were threatening to stab my kids from weeks ago and told them don’t worry about it just let it go. Thank God the schools had shut down for breaks to give them a chance to cool down but I guess they holding grudge or a vengeance.”

However, the boy’s brother told The Tribune he was unaware of his sibling having issues with other students.

Eventually students were released from the campus but one mother was still waiting on her daughter who was being questioned. The mother understands everyone in the class was being questioned as well.

“I don’t think I could bring my child back to school. Government High is not a secure school. Every day I watch kids jumping the gate doing all types of foolishness. They don’t even have no police here,” she said.

“I’m in fear for my life. I’m in fear for my child’s life because I don’t want to come home and meet a dead child or someone come to me and say my child die. Right now I have a 9th grader who is supposed to be coming here. Registration is supposed to be tomorrow but I don’t think I’m gonna send them back here.”