The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

THE Royal Bahamas Police Force and education officials held a special forum at AF Adderley Junior High School yesterday to caution students about the dangers of gangs and violence.

The sobering message was delivered weeks after a student was stabbed at the school. A 13-year-old boy has been charged with attempted murder in the wake of the incident. Police have been returned to some school campuses after the attack, AF Adderley being one of them.

A funeral casket was on display at the forum - a jarring reminder of the unfortunate outcomes of poor choices.

Convict Ronald George Simmons, 48, knows too well the consequences of making bad decisions.

Simmons was convicted of killing a police officer while escaping the scene of a robbery in Andros. He was sentenced to death on April 5, 2002 at the age of 28, but is now serving a life sentence for the crime.

Dressed in black and white stripes and in shackles, he told the mostly young audience to think about how their decisions impact their lives and others around them.

“They’re decisions you have to make at your very young age because at your very young age it’s quite obvious that you are able to do extreme damage. Like I said, life is about choices and some of the choices that you make you cannot easily fix,” the convict said.

“There’s a choice that I made that I cannot fix. I would like to, but I cannot fix some of the mistakes I have made and there are choices you will make that will last a very long time and some of the decisions will be your very last decision because it will be a fatal decision and the people that you see standing here asking me to speak to you because they don’t want you to make the decision that could be a fatal decision or decision that you will regret for the rest of your life.”

Police officers also gave a presentation on gangs, including listing a few that are active and how they recruit young people to be their “soldiers”. After the AF Adderley stabbing, officials said it may have been gang-related.

“These are what young persons are doing marking their territory - letting it be known I’m a part of this gang,” one officer told the students.

During one point in the presentation, some members of the audience were able to identify a gang by the hand signs associated with that particular unlawful organised group.

Superintendent Audley Peters said the forum was held for ninth graders yesterday, with seventh graders expected today.

“The intention of the police in this instance is to provide the students and faculty here with nuances of the student experience on the street, that’s one, to expose the students of the consequences of their behaviours and decisions and also to encourage them to begin to know themselves using the various exercises we use during this forum,” he explained.

“The police department is always seeking to address issues as they arrive in our communities and we know that crime and misbehaviour is an issue that is always at the forefront of people’s minds. So, we sought to seek to address this issue of school violence by putting on this forum having speakers come in who would’ve experienced what the students might be experiencing, potentially having to experience so that they may be exposed to the information and have the power to make the right decision when the time comes to reap the desire of being a productive person, growing up to be a productive citizen.”

Inspector Makelle Pinder, who has worked as a homicide detective for three years, put a spotlight on some of the country’s young victims of violence, many of whom were teens.

One of the most high-profile cases the officer dealt with was the killing of teen mother Breanna Mackey. Mackey was stabbed to death a day after celebrating her 19th birthday and the accused were a group of females said to be her “friends”.

Inspector Pinder also mentioned two cousins who were AF Adderley students, 13 and 15, who were executed back in 2017.

“So who’s going to lead us? Young women and men, when we see this happening every day, (people are) gutted and left in the streets like animals - who’s going to lead us? The end result is if you don’t wake up your ideas you can either be an inmate or you can be a victim of crime - the ultimate choice is yours,” she said.

The forum is the first in a series planned with the police force, the Ministry of Education and the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services.