Prime Minister Perry Christie
By KHRISNA VIRGIL
Tribune Staff Reporter
kvirgil@tribunemedia.net
PRIME Minister Perry Christie said yesterday he was “stunned” to learn of the stabbing death of a 16-year-old Doris Johnson Senior High School student as he suggested the country’s crime situation now requires not only a stronger police presence in schools but for the government to invest in ensuring campuses are outfitted with security equipment.
The day after the teenage boy was fatally attacked by other school students, Mr Christie said whatever the reason for the dispute, it should never have happened. The country, he said, now has yet another unnecessary death.
The prime minister said the Ministry of Education must now review and decide whether it should be more aggressive in ensuring students do not enter schools with weapons.
Mr Christie, who was visibly concerned as he described having seen videos of the incident on Facebook, likened the scene to “old days at the coliseum”.
He went on to extend his condolences to the victim’s family and also expressed regret to the relatives of those connected to the alleged attackers.
“It (could come down to stronger police presence),” Mr Christie said. “Or stronger police advice as to what should happen with respect to security in the schools. But whatever it takes, this ought not to happen because kids are grouping and standing around and watching a fight and taking video of a fight.
“Good God almighty, it’s like the old days at the coliseum.”
He spoke to The Tribune on the sidelines of the Ministry of Financial Services and Local Government’s Family Island Administrators Symposium at the Melià Nassau Beach Hotel.
Mr Christie said years ago when he advocated to have police officers in public schools, it was to avoid violence that could result in serious injury or death.
During Mr Christie’s first term in office, school policing had been one of his administration’s major crime fighting initiatives. However, it was discontinued when the Free National Movement took office but reinstated after the Progressive Liberal Party won the 2012 election.
“From our point of view, the educational system must review whether or not it must be more aggressive in ensuring that students do not come into the schools with weapons. That’s the least we can do. Looking at the weapon that was brandished on the videos that I saw, we must ensure that the students do not come into the school with any kind of threatening instrument.
“So therefore it looks like the only way that we are going to have to do that is to insist on those kinds of provisions that ought not to be in the schools. Whether it is screening equipment, whether is searching, but in a school environment we have every right to ensure that discipline is the order of the day. So I have no doubt that the Minister of Education (Jerome Fitzgerald) in association with the Royal Bahamas Police Force (would) do that.”
Shortly after 2pm on Wednesday at Prince Charles Drive, less than a mile from the school’s campus, 12th grader Adonai Wilson was stabbed multiple times during an argument with other students. He died a short time later in hospital.
A graphic video of the incident spread on social media shortly after the attack. The short video, shot on cell phone, shows several boys running towards the victim and attacking him. At one point in the video, one of the alleged assailants is seen wielding a large knife before plunging it into the victim several times while others held him as dozens of shocked students looked on.
This latest killing brought the country’s murder count to 139 for the year, according to The Tribune’s records.
Police have taken two teen boys into custody – a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old – for questioning over the incident.
Comments
TruePeople 8 years, 11 months ago
? another teachable moment? i'm waiting for these politicians to stop being totally surprised by this stuff. It's not like it's getting less common. wtf
newcitizen 8 years, 11 months ago
All of these 'teachable moments' and not one single 'learned moment' among them.
sheeprunner12 8 years, 11 months ago
Police have no place in schools ..................... shall we put teachers in the police stations??????
Perry needs to get the STAR Academy up and open for the 1000 disruptive/underperforming high school boys in Nassau ............ so that the others can have a fighting chance to learn ........ but we need three all-male bootcamp high schools to put on Shock Treatment all year round to make a difference.
TruePeople 8 years, 11 months ago
Shock Treatment is BS anyway. It's just more police treating poor people from trouble backgrounds like criminals. Do that to them as kids, they prob gone grow up to believe that they are criminals and shout F the Police. See too much youth with that mentality... badding them up only makes it worse
Voltaire 8 years, 11 months ago
Indeed. Exactly correct.
lionfish 8 years, 11 months ago
Teachers in the police stations might be a good idea......
newcitizen 8 years, 11 months ago
Way higher attendance rates than in the classroom
DEDDIE 8 years, 11 months ago
Police need to be where ever crime is. If its in the school then the police need to be there.
sheeprunner12 8 years, 11 months ago
Soooooooooo, if we put all the Shock Treatment boys over Atlantis and let them go on waterslide rides all day ........... they will learn respect, cooperation and manners??? I understand your views on how inner city boys view the Police, but if you want to really change their mentality........... take them permanently out of the inner city ......... send them to the Amish in Andros
GrassRoot 8 years, 11 months ago
where is Dr. Nottage when we need him?
sealice 8 years, 11 months ago
didn't the PLP get rid of the only successful farmers in Andros?
sansoucireader 8 years, 11 months ago
Mennonites not Amish. Similar but not the same.
GrassRoot 8 years, 11 months ago
“Good God almighty, it’s like the old days at the coliseum.” yes. exactly. Status in the Bahamas equals Status of the Civilized World minus 2000 years.
totally out of touch. pro memoria: its was a 17 year old that was involved shooting a 40 year old teacher just a couple of weeks ago. so wake up.
digimagination 8 years, 11 months ago
What these kids - and others - don't realise is that, once convicted of a serious crime, they are prisoners for life in the Bahamas - even after they complete their prison sentence(s). With a criminal record they will never be allowed to travel to the US, Canada, Europe and very soon all other countries - including the Caribbean basin.
sansoucireader 8 years, 11 months ago
True, but most teens and young people aren't thinking that far ahead. Bad behavior here and you get no visa to go anywhere else.
sheeprunner12 8 years, 11 months ago
BJ is totally useless and helpless in this matter ............. it is even worse, because both he and Perry, Fred, Glenys, Fitzie (and Old Dick/Doc Rollins) represent the majority of the troubled youth in Nassau ................. this serious matter deserves urgent bi-partisan attention (not politricks)
lazybor 8 years, 11 months ago
God help us!
http://s02.flagcounter.com/mini/rzN/bg_…" width="1"/>
B_I_D___ 8 years, 11 months ago
Another knee jerk reactionary concept...more police in the schools would not have stopped this as the incident did not happen at the school.
sheeprunner12 8 years, 11 months ago
Nassau high schools need metal detectors, bag and body scanners ........... thats a good contract for Fotzie to give out to one of his generals next year...................... SMDH
lionfish 8 years, 11 months ago
Did he miss the part of the story where this incident happened after school and on a public street?
sangeej 8 years, 11 months ago
Stunned! y'all had a commercial on student that was killed after school in south beach, you Mr. P.M had commercials about murders and licking of gun shots over airways, STUNNED? What were you thing sir? that it was all going to STOP AS SOON AS YOU GOT IN POWER? smt! wake up sir y'all gave that spirit the okay because you'll advertised it over this country's airwaves and billboards and news papers, You need to ask the Bahamas to forgive you'll, and the D.P.M has to do so separated to this whole Nation.
Emac 8 years, 11 months ago
Lionfish, Apparently everyone commenting here, including our inept prime minister,missed the part where it is stated that this fight occurred off campus. Everyone hears about an incident involving students and they assume it took place on school campus. I don't get how placing metal detectors in school entrances and providing more police can prevent students from getting in these kinds of problems. This is not a school problem, this is a social issue. Just goes to show what a fake jackass we gat for prime minister. I guess he wants to show that he is concerned by opening he big mouth and saying anything to appease the dumb Bahamian masses.
Cas0072 8 years, 11 months ago
We need affordable or free after-school programs. I read that school let out at noon and the incident took place after 2 pm. If these children had somewhere to be, an interest to pursue, they would not have been lingering in the streets trying to settle stupid beefs.
Emac 8 years, 11 months ago
Agreed
sheeprunner12 8 years, 11 months ago
I think that Perry should go on a long Christmas vacation and reflect on what he is doing and about to do to this country (and the financial and social ruin that is pending), consider that the 300,000 people who do not benefit from his decisons in this country are raging mad and just come back in the new year .......... and resign and call a new election.............. just wishful thinking
TruePeople 8 years, 11 months ago
He'd only use up we VAT money on his All inclusive. Gone say "bey... i guh miss dis life" and come back to Nassau sayin he gats the pie the sky and the answer for erryting! Vote PLP!!
TalRussell 8 years, 11 months ago
Comrade Prime Minister why did you skip over the part about schools forget how to discipline students and I am not talking about administrating corporal punishment.
Teaches are not even supplied with the basic teaching tools - so I guess it is much too easier to "send-in the armed policeman's on children," than it would be to provide them with counseling, books and lunch programs.
Try government funding the resources to help children with behavioral problems - not sen in armed policeman's, as your first and only option.
PM what about funding the parents who have their own behavioral issues? How long will it be from handcuffing our children to the policeman's banging their heads - or God forbid it should ever happen - shooting our children.
Comrades they do beat-up and they do shoots the citizens and government does not a damn thing to stop the bullets.
Economist 8 years, 11 months ago
Tal, you are right on the money. I also recall that some times when a teacher did spank a child the child's parents ran to their MP.
On more than one occasion that MP was a minister and he had the teacher sacked.
Teachers need to be given the right tools and support.
TalRussell 8 years, 11 months ago
Oh My Dear Comrade Economists the tools I call for are not the tools of spanking (adults beating we schools children's).
Cas0072 8 years, 11 months ago
I agree, clearly spanking has failed. In fact, spanking, which is often much worse than what could truly be described as a spanking, may have reinforced to these students that physical retribution is the ultimate punishment for a slight. A Facebook post that is attributed to one of the teen killers (?) said that he did not mean to kill his fellow student, he just wanted him to back off of his friend.
GrassRoot 8 years, 11 months ago
chances are that their MP will be Wayne Munroe and he will approve of the methods the teacher applied (that is and assuming the kid is a foreigner and needs to be beaten back to Africa or Haiti or Cuba or Peru).
thomas 8 years, 11 months ago
All this talk about what to do when a student brings a knife to school and not a thought given to how he got to the place where he brings a knife to school intent on causing harm. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Is he really only thinking about how to keep the crime outside the school gates ?
Franklyn 8 years, 11 months ago
CAPTAIN KANGAROO!
https://youtu.be/JIxQFlKZHwk
ThisIsOurs 8 years, 11 months ago
More police will do just as much good as UR 2.0 and that magic map he showed us a few months ago. This is not a simple show of force problem
realfreethinker 8 years, 11 months ago
I am " SHOCKED " you are still around f...king up this country. you moron,you skank,you a..hole,you bufoon. just go away pleaseeeeee. Jeeeeezzzzz
John 8 years, 11 months ago
Violence is nothing new in schools or among school children. All of us have had instances in our school days when at least one female student 'jook' another one with her compass or stab someone with a scissors (They were paper scissors back then and so the injury never came close to being life threatening). Young men took to bursting their opponents with rocks and bottles and these retaliations usually took place on or near school closing day. What has so drastically changed now is that school fights have become more 'armed' and more deadly. When a student takes an eight inch knife to school (or around school) and proceeds to attack another student with it and stabs him with the force and the intensity as shown on the video, that is more than a school fight. That is going to battle with deadly force and unless the perpetrator can explain it away, his only intention was to cause the death of his target...to commit murder! Least we forget the first murder ever committed was not between two strangers but it was one brother murdering the other because of jealousy and then failing to be accountable for his actions because 'I am not my brothers keeper.' And what is the point? The point is that the bible instructs us that as it was in the beginning so shall it be in the end. We have reached the point where brothers (and schoolmates) are killing one another because they are no longer their brothers' keeper. Their love has waxed cold.
SP 8 years, 11 months ago
... Blind sided, teachable moments, and now stunned. We fear what he miss's next! ...
With 3 years at the helm, P.M. Christies' feeble attempt at shifting blame to the FNM for canceling policing in schools in 2012 is totally unacceptable.
Education minister Jerome Fitzgerald's recent report pretending success's and progress in schools have unquestionably proven deadly inaccurate for the murder victim, destroyed the lives of the perpetrators and traumatized parents and the nation. Especially those forced to send children to the public school system due to financial hardship.
Aggressive and disruptive students take control of entire classrooms by commanding excessive amounts of teachers focus and obviously threaten the very lives of everyone else.
Every school is familiar with students displaying aggressive and disruptive behavior in elementary, middle, and high school. To ensure a safe school environment for our children, Bahamas needs to designate one school especially for these chronically disruptive students where they can receive long-term, intensive interventions focusing on the 3 R's, technical and vocational training.
Instituting an alternative style school is the only common sense solution that separates and protects students that want to learn from those that thrive on violence and chaos.
Nooooooooo 8 years, 11 months ago
This government is allways so reactionary. They are always behind the cart, behind innovation, behind on news, behind on technology, behind on governing, behind on crime, no forward thinking in that party what-so- ever.
Like the PM said a few months ago,
THINGS WILL GET GOOD REAL SOON!!!!!!!!!!!
HAHAHAH HAHAHA HAHAHA
Nooooooooo 8 years, 11 months ago
This government is allways so reactionary. They are always behind the cart, behind innovation, behind on news, behind on technology, behind on governing, behind on crime, no forward thinking in that party what-so- ever.
RBPF IS ALREADY LOW ON NUMBER YA CANT TAKE THEM POLICE OF THE STREETS. Highly qualified security guards with weapons and a fluid commication with RPBF to make arrest when needed.
Like the PM said a few months ago,
THINGS WILL GET GOOD REAL SOON!!!!!!!!!!!
HAHAHAH HAHAHA HAHAHA
bismark 8 years, 11 months ago
PM,sir you don't have to be stunned,first off these kids are only doing these things because the culture of violence in our society is totally accepted as normal,when you have known hoodlums charged with serious offences namely murder and armed robbery,these SCUM are released among us to wreak havoc again,these individuals are the ones are misguided youth follow,3 out of 5 of our young men aren't doing anything in school but going there to eat lunch and bullskate all day,these young men need discipline,thats all that is lacking,we have allowed this gang culture to flourish where it seems that every young man wants to be in a gang .punishment must be enforced in this country and it must be severe,people charged with serious crimes must be made to pay for their wrong doings,make jail a place of serious punishment,not a hotel;make inmates feed themselves,farm the land you eat what you grow;prison should be hard labour,work them from morning to night,no wonder they go back and forth they aren't doing anything in the prison,work them like animals seeing that's the way they want to behave,Hanging needs to be resumed in this country,the hell with the privy council,Hanging needs to be carried out for these crimes of murder,it may not stop murder,but that individual will murder no more.
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