The Tribune

By PACO NUNEZ

Tribune News Editor

ONE night not too long ago, a young man in his early 20s was walking home through the narrow, dimly lit streets of the neighbourhood where he was born and has always lived.

As he approached his corner, gunshots rang out from the darkness, hitting him in the back, the neck, the hand and five times in the leg, shattering his shinbone.

Bleeding profusely, the victim managed to crawl to safety. Countless hospital nights and several surgeries later, today he is finally back on his feet.

It was the second time in the space of a year that he was shot just yards from his house.

Now, according to the official interpretation of our escalating crime problem, this young man must have been some sort of troublemaker.

He must have been a gangster who’s earned enemies, a drug dealer attacked by rivals. He must have been someone whose behaviour had made him a target.

As the murder count continued to climb in recent years, we’ve been told countless times not to worry, the criminal fraternity preys primarily on itself. And all we need to do is remove this relatively small network of deviants from our midst, and all will be well.

In fact, this particular victim wasn’t embroiled in any street rivalries, wasn’t part of a gang. He didn’t deal drugs and wasn’t wanted by the police.

No, he was targeted by teenagers out to rob anyone walking the streets of Grants Town that night who might have a few dollars in their pocket.

They recognised him, and figured he was a good mark. After all, he was known to have an honest trade and had even helped them out with money and gifts in the past.

“My own two brethrens shot me,” he told us. “My own two little brethrens. They tried to rob me, take my couple dollars.”

The boys who shot him the second time are now behind bars, he tells us. The shooter in the first incident is dead, killed on the very same block not long after.

He explained that despite the official line, in the ghetto there are many other victims just like him. But most are afraid to tell their stories.

The 13, 14, 15-year-olds responsible for these shootings think only about money, he said. Some really need it for food, others to fulfil the demands of the “bling” culture within which they have lived from infancy.

Their parents, invariably unemployed, are either drunkards or drug addicts, this young man said.

He told us of a woman around the corner, who struggles to feed her six children fathered by three different men, none of whom stuck around.

Meanwhile, what are the children doing?

“They sitting down and they plotting you know. They thinking about how they gonna go get this, because ain’t none of them working. None of them doing nothing.”

They are part of a generation that is even more vicious, more reckless than the notorious gang boys of the 1980s.

“This set is more violent. They trying to get it. They gonna be dead or end up in jail man, with the road they trodding,” he said.

But not before they produce yet another abandoned generation still more numerous, and probably more violent, than their own.

“They are making little children and thing on the road, and they’re so young. They getting little girls pregnant...”

He breaks off his story to point out two young boys, perhaps ten and 13 years old, walking the streets at 1pm on a Tuesday when they should be in school.

“See what walks around the road all day? Mad little boys,” he said.

The topic is taken up by Valentino “Scrooge” Brown, a former gang leader turned community activist in the area.

According to Scrooge, these angry little boys are the perfect fodder for the self-perpetuating cycle of violence.

“The crime situation in this country is not going to change, because see, we have a completed circle. All the murders we see today, are the same murders you will be seeing 20 years from now,” he said. 

“There is no new murder in this country, they are just repeated occurrences, because what happens is this: Valentino Brown goes and kills somebody, he gets sentenced to Fox Hill Prison, he gets a 20-year sentence.

“But before Valentino Brown left, he trained 50 to 60 to probably to 100 young guys in the same mentality as Valentino had. 

“So even though I gone, I have 100 more soldiers out there who are doing the same things.

“When I learned to shoot somebody, when I learned to rob somebody – whatever I learned from the person who was bad, I will pass it on to the next generation. So we are gonna have a repeated occurrence, over and over and over.”

What he describes is a starkly different reality from the official version, and Scrooge has little time for the official solution either.

“Defence Force, police officers, all they gonna be doing is locking young men up, and they’ll be locking young men up after that, and more young men after that, because every year we face 100 murders.

“They are not the same people charged with murder the very next year, so 200 different people are getting charged with murder within two years time.  

“Five years, you have 500 murders, and out of those probably two of them will be charged with two murders within five years. Two murders they probably responsible for within that five years.

“So you have like 456 people who are murderers on our streets every five years. Different people. So we have a serious, serious problem.”

Law enforcement crackdowns are therefore only temporary fixes.

“All you do is slow it down for a second. It’s just like I said, you hit the head, but you still got the tail, you got the middle – you understand what I’m saying? They are still out there because they have learned what has been already taught, and they are gonna explore it, and they’re gonna do it no matter who comes into power, no matter how much police are on the road. 

“As a criminal, this is what I’m gonna do: the police are hot, the Defence Force are hot, well, I turn a citizen like you. “So now I’m doing the things you do – I’m ain’t toting no gun, I ain’t selling no drugs. I’m stashing all my guns, I’m telling all my boys who I involved with, ‘Look here, we ain’t doing nothing, The Man hot.’ 

“So, as quick as The Man done finish their 24-hour shift, and everything done cool off a month, two months later, we gonna get my enemies.

“So the criminals can adjust to anything you throw at them.

“But, they can’t adjust to love and development. We need love and development, and a lot of money in these communities in order for us to change things in this country. Other than that, we wasting our time.”

Love and development is supposedly represented on the other side of the government’s response to crime – Urban Renewal.

But, Scrooge asked why the government would seek to reinvent the wheel when activists like himself have already earned the trust of communities across New Providence.

“Fifteen years I have been working a basketball programme. Donna Smith, who lives right through the corner there, she has been doing talent shows for 22 years. Every young kid in here has participated in the Old Boat Alley Independence Talent Show, but this woman has yet to receive any sponsorship from government, but she does excellent, excellent work.

“Myself, just recently I got sponsored by the Ministry of Education – $500 stipend, $1,000 stipend – small stipends.

“Imagine if government was to assist and put $100,000 in your programme, $50,000 in my programme, put $20,000 or $50,000 into Donna Smith.

“It changes everything, because she done have her base, my base has been established over 15 years. You have an opportunity to get in there with these people, who have a good connection with the community people, and they can get the job done.

“The system they’re dealing with is an old system. It ain’t working anymore, because you’re not including us,” he said.