By KHRISNA RUSSELL
Deputy Chief Reporter
krussell@tribunemedia.net
POLICE have not yet taken anyone into custody for the murder of Anthony Smith, 15, who was gunned down on Prison Lane earlier this week.
“We are following leads, but we don’t have anyone in custody at this time,” Chief Superintendent Solomon Cash told The Tribune on Friday.
Anthony was shot in front of a house in Greenwich Street shortly after 8pm on Tuesday by a man in a dark coloured Honda. He was taken to hospital where he later died.
Wellington Smith, the boy’s father, tearfully recalled kneeling over his son’s bullet-riddled body for almost 30 minutes before the ambulance “finally arrived’, despite their home being less than five minutes away from the Princess Margaret Hospital.
Mr Smith said he believes “Tony” was targeted because of the many fights he got into at school, stemming from a “gang war” between boys from Mason’s Addition and Kemp Road. He admitted Anthony was “not perfect”, but said “the system” set his son up to fail, when the Ministry of Education sent him to a school in a neighbourhood with rivals.
The distraught father said he knew the minute his son enrolled in C I Gibson Senior High School he would most likely die. Because of this, Mr Smith said Anthony was intentionally pulled out of school after only attending for three days since September.
Meanwhile, friends of the victim have told The Tribune they will retaliate against the murder of the teenager.
The threats came amid an ongoing gang and turf war that is affecting some junior and senior high school campuses in New Providence.
“I’ll slaughter them, see what I saying,” one boy aged 15 said yesterday as he stood outside the gates of C I Gibson Senior High School on Marathon Road.
“We (are) retaliating for our boy.
“Some riding mad a, and some riding (one) orda (gang),” another boy, 16, chimed in as he demonstrated various gang hand signs.
Another said: “That’s our boy man. That’s sad man. Yeah, man, I drop tears. I think it wasn’t called for. I mean that’s a lil’n.
“Dis ain’t going down like that,” someone else in the group of about 10 boys, shouted.
Asked whether fighting was common at their school, the boys agreed, one of them saying: “We just had two fights today.” As the victim’s friends gave this newspaper a glimpse into the violence plaguing the country’s educational system, scores of students ran toward a rock fight, which erupted several feet from a nearby tyre shop.
The Tribune canvassed students, whose identities have been withheld because they are minors, at C I Gibson and D W Davis yesterday, following Anthony Smith’s death on Tuesday night.
Anthony attended both schools before his death.
Comments
John 7 years ago
Approximately Twelve minors were murdered this year. Probably more underage victims in any year in recent history. The country (and police) should be concerned that the victims of murders are younger. Again mostly males, school age boys
John 7 years ago
The sheep cannot take care of themselves. It is the States responsibility to keep them safe. It’s the parents responsibility to give them guidance and direction and keep safe in their homes. The schools responsibility to educate them in s safe place and the church to give spiritual uplifting. Big brothers and sisters also to help guide and protect the younger ones. So who’s failing? Who is failing when you let the wolves in and let them devour your children? Kill after killing, murders after murder? The blood of these youth are on your hands O Bahamas!
John 7 years ago
In the Bible, Paul says the law is a curse. Because the law is everything. People cannot have discipline and regulations without law. And when you let people get away with killing people over and over almost 150 times a year and nothing seems to be being done about it and the people who are breaking the law are running free, then the law becomes a curse to those trying to live under the law. The natural instinct for them to want to go and seek revenge increases. Only respect for the law and the love of Christ constrains them. Satan is angry because he knows his time is short. He is to and fro throughout the earth seeking whom to destroy. So thank God we still have a praying nation.
John 7 years ago
Kudos to those police officers who uncovered a cache of weapons and ammunition hidden in a refrigerator being imported into the country. And on further investigation found more weapons and ammunition in a home. Several persons are now in custody and hopefully the law will not smile brightly on them. Time this weapons smuggling and sales be exposed.
sheeprunner12 7 years ago
Just let the SWAT go and get every boy who attends C I Gibson and interrogate them ....... find the serial gang-bangers in the school ........ then interrogate them ......... then find the gang-bangers and their leaders on Kemp Road and East Street and interrogate them .......... and when I say interrogate, I mean by all means necessary ............. We have to stop playing games with these so-called "bad boy teenagers" who think they can terrorize the inner city communities........... Clean up CH Reeves, RM Bailey, DW Davis, CI Gibson, LW Young etc. once and for all and make the safe and respectable institutions to educate and train the next generation.
TorontoGal 7 years ago
If the police did as you suggest all hell would break out with everyone screaming police brutality. The mindset of the Bahamian people also needs to change. Too many young women are having babies that they are not capable of raising. The father is never around because he's too busy spreading his seed everywhere. I know of so many men who brag about having 15 - 20 children by 8 - 10 women. Few of these children are raised to become decent adults because their parents are not equipped. Start by raising your kids to respect their bodies and not having babies so young.
Next, round up all the "gang bangers" lock them all up somewhere where no one else can be harmed then let her go at each other until he realise just how rediculous revenge is or they have all killed each other.
Maybe them you will start to have a safe island.
sheeprunner12 7 years ago
Well, your solution is not to have the babies ...... but these pigs already grew into hogs .......... we need a "two illegitimate babies then sterilize" rule.
John 7 years ago
Toronto Gall “I know of so many men who brag about having 25-30 children ‘. You and the truth are strangers. Your lie is a bold face one. And if you don’t have credible substance to contribute you should keep quiet. The latest murder victim, like many, had a father who was taking care of his son and actively involved in his life. When he realized his son was caught up in the crossfire of different gangs he called out for help. His pleas went unanswered. The father took his son out of school to avoid him getting in conflict only to have him ambushed and killed just a short distance from his home, from police headquarters and from the hospital. You and the facts are strangers. You are a dirty stranger to the truth. Many of these young boys being killed do so trying to avoid gangs and gang activity. Like you, gangs are foreign to the Bahamas and once the police get a grip and squash this foreign element then the murders will cease and the young men and everyone else in the country will be safe.
John 7 years ago
@sheeprunner you should have thought about that sterilization rule when y’all was forcing slaves to breed like farm animals and then breaking up families and selling them like cattle. Yes fathers abandoning their children is learnt behavior but the hogs are the ones who forced them to breed. Look at your hands.
John 7 years ago
And your snout!
sheeprunner12 7 years ago
John ............ I am sure you have men in your family who are good fathers and those who are deadbeat fathers (as in mine) ........ Men in this country must be encouraged by community leaders who are good father role models to do the right thing and support their children - whether inside or outside of the family home. ......... FYI: Long Island men have a good reputation for being family men ......... so, take your frustration elsewhere. Women have and should take extra precaution to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies ........... there is NO excuse for three, four or five unwanted pregnancies.
John 7 years ago
Sheeprunner : when you refer to people’s children as pigs and hogs it could only be because you are a hog yourself. And to try qualiify your statement by trying to interject my family makes you even less credible. We have had many years of illigimate children and many children born out of wedlock or to single parents. If this was the single or major cause of crime in this country the problem will have manifested itself in the family islands. You are no more credible than Toronto Gal who claims she knows many Bahamian men with up to 20 children and up to 10 different baby mommas. But why Toronto Gal ain’t say what the fashion trend is in Toronto? For single white women to have ‘mixies ‘ or children with black men. So they come to the Bahamas, Jamaica and other Caribbean islands and get pregnant for native (black) men, some women do it two and three times over. And they parade strung Toronto and the world with these mixed black children, not unlike a pedigree poodle of some other prized pet. Then what happens when the child turns 16-16? They start asking for their father. And in many cases the mother cannot answer because she didn’t document who the father was or keep in contact with him. And in many cases the children come to the Bahamas, Jamaica or some other island looking for their daddy. Just recently a young man came to Freeport from the Maple 🍁 Leaf looking for his daddy. The Bahamian man had married and lived with the Canadian woman for a number of years. Then one day he came home to meet the house cleaned out and his wife and children gone. He spent many years and a lot of money back and forth to Canada trying to find his family. Then he took I’ll fr the stress of losing his family. The son met his father 3 days before he died. The sons last words before leaving the Bahamas was ‘I don’t care to see my mom again. She destroyed me and made me nobody.”
ashley14 7 years ago
Birth control is the responsibility of both consenting adults and what about diseases. You best take care of your body. Children need both parents to respect each other and work together.
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