The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

AS RESIDENTS of Yellow Elder Gardens continue to cope with the recent murders of two of that community’s young men, Mount Moriah MP Arnold Forbes yesterday announced his plans to help the curb escalating crime in the area.

Mr Forbes and police officers conducted a walkabout on Major Road, near the Government High School, where he said the fear among residents has been strongest.

“There are people who want to stay inside for that reason,” Mr Forbes said, “It hurts me to see young men in this community killing each other senselessly. These are young men who could have been anything in this country but they’ve gone down the wrong way.

“Last week, two young lives were lost to senseless acts of crime. These cannot go unpunished, and all must be brought to justice.

“What has saddened me is the age of the lives lost from the community – just 18 and 20 – and also their alleged perpetrators, who are particularly young men.”

Plans to bring the community back to safer days include an active Urban Renewal 2.0 presence, increased police saturation patrols of criminal hot-spots and a council that will provide information to the police and constituency officials.

Elsie Knowles, grandmother of 19-year-old murder victim Lamar Bain, said more vigilance by police has been needed for some time.

Ms Knowles said: “There are times when these young people just group up, sometimes on the park or even on the corner.

“I was just speaking to several of our church men yesterday and I was suggesting to them that our men in the church and the police need to be more vigilant in helping to father some of these young men.

“They may be hurting and don’t know how to express themselves or don’t know how to come to grips with certain things, but if you get them on a one-on-one basis, if only give them half an hour of your time and find out what’s going on with the children, I think that would be a great help.”

Judy Roberts, grandmother of Elijah Roberts,19, the other murder victim, recalled the day her grandson died.

“Right now I ready to fall out . . . All I see is they pull up and kill ‘Lija right here. By time as I got out there, they did already shoot him in his head.

“Something has to happen in Yellow Elder Gardens. My grandson didn’t do no body nothing,” Ms Roberts said.