Patricia Minnis speaking to the press on Thursday. Photo: Terrel W Carey Sr/Tribune Staff
By EARYEL BOWLEG
ebowleg@tribunemedia.net
PATRICIA Minnis said the community should be “outraged” and march in the wake of recent shootings that have wounded young children.
Mrs Minnis, wife of Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis, was asked about children getting caught in the crossfire - following last week’s shooting of a two-year-old girl and the death of a ten-year-old girl from gunfire.
“We need to be outraged about that,” said Mrs Minnis, who heads the Office of the Spouse.
“There’s a lot of things that we seem to be outraged of but that is so important for all of the community to gather. We need to march for this. We need to really tell our young men who are killing themselves and who are killing innocent people to stop. They have to stop because they don’t want it happen to their mother, their sister.”
She added: “This child was being held by her grandmother in her lap when she was shot and... (that could) be your mother, your daughter and so we have to get to them and stop them. And by every which means we have to get to them.”
Da’Nyla Roberts was shot in Eleuthera on June 27 and is now suffering kidney failure due to her injuries. Her mother Dwainelle Guillaume, 23, said the child needs to go abroad as soon as possible for proper treatment.
The family was previously seeking blood donations as the child suffered internal organ damage to her lungs, spleen, kidneys, liver and bowels. The family is trying to raise the necessary funds to transfer her to a US hospital.
“For right now, we don’t know what exactly she needs but her kidneys are failing so I can’t say that’s it’s going to be a transplant or a surgery or whatever,” Ms Guillaume said. “But we don’t know yet until she gets in the States so they can do the proper treatment to find out what’s really going (on).
“. . . We have to come up with the funds in full in order for her to be accepted into the hospital.”
While presenting care packages to the Nurses Association of the Bahamas yesterday, Mrs Minnis made a public appeal for donations yesterday for the little girl.
She said: “I’d like to appeal to the public to please if you have an extra $20 or whatever donate it (to the family) so that she could get the kidney transplant that she may need. Please in any way. I know we are dealing with hard times for many of you who are not working but just maybe you could forgo maybe the nails money.”
The child was shot by a stray bullet while sitting in her grandmother’s arms on their porch shortly before 10pm on Saturday on Baby Johnson Lane in Hatchet Bay. She was airlifted to New Providence for treatment.
The incident comes after the death of 10-year-old Lorencia Simmons Walkes - a fifth grader of Sybil Strachan Primary School. She died on Sunday June 7, more than a week after she was shot in the Carmichael area.
The 10-year-old was among the three people shot on May 29 when occupants of a gold coloured vehicle approached a group in front of a home at Belville Circle off Iguana Way shortly after 1pm, police said. Officers said three men exited the vehicle armed with firearms and fired gunshots at the group.
Comments
joeblow 4 years, 4 months ago
The rational people in this country are outraged and also realize that marching won't change a criminally minded persons ways, but hanging might. Why don't we march for that? And furthermore why don't we march against her husbands simplemindedness? She's invited!
bahamianson 4 years, 4 months ago
Sell one of those emerald ratings and help some people whom have lost their jobs
birdiestrachan 4 years, 4 months ago
Mrs; Minnis can march, My sympathy to the child and all who love her I wish them well
There are a lot of injustices under this FNM Government. taxing the poor beyond endurance . disrespect for senior police officers. charging young black men for minor offences fines they can not pay in these difficult times. just to mention a few.
There should be a march for these thing also
mandela 4 years, 4 months ago
When the RBPF took a bat to the young men during a Junkanoo parade at the beginning of the year why were there no cries to march because of police brutality, in 2020 there were numerous occurring situations to march for, yes we can march because of these senseless killings by these coward thugs but we should march for RBPF brutality, high cost of living, joblessness, being treated as second class citizens in our own country, and disrespect to its citizens plus many more. Yes, we should march an all-round march.
Godson 4 years, 4 months ago
Now ya talking!
Godson 4 years, 4 months ago
I, Godson Andrew Johnson, would really like to be in attendance to the rally so that I can give the speech as to why so many of us feels compelled to pick-up arms to shoot.
Madame Patricia and The Bahamas, it is a consequence, not a cause!
joeblow 4 years, 4 months ago
... there is ZERO excuse for pulling a weapon on the helpless and vulnerable at any time. There is an excuse if its justifiable self defense. Your 'consequences' are simply excuses! People feel compelled to pick up arms because they CHOOSE to yield to their base instincts like animals, instead of choosing another way. Violence only shortens the lives of those who practice it! At the end of the day, its important to be in a community of humans to learn to act and think like one!
Godson 4 years, 4 months ago
I invite dialogue and action to deal with the causes... He who feels it, knows it.
Ones ideological drumbeat from the sidelines don't mean shit! We have an elephant in the room. Take your head out of the hole and face it!
For over ten years or more we have been averaging 100 or more deaths by shooting of our young men. We are wasting our most precious resource: young bright and brave men.
Stop the bull-shit talk.... ACTION IS NEEDED TO SAVE AND PREVENT US FROM THIS TRAGEDY.
joeblow 4 years, 4 months ago
You fail to face the fact that poverty is not a cause of criminality, choice is. If poverty caused crime the rich would never commit crimes and that is simply untrue. There are many who were raised in the ghetto and in single parent homes who did not resort to crime as a way of getting out of their situations. I know because I am one!!!!!!!
Wake up and stop with the excuses!!!! Stop with the idiotic excuses!!! Each individual is responsible for the path they choose!!
Godson 4 years, 4 months ago
I would really like to be a speaker at the rally so that I can state personally why so many of us feels compelled to pick-up arms to shoot.
Madame Patricia and The Bahamas, it is a consequence, not the cause!
It is a consequence of corrupt and incompetent police officers who young men, and women alike, cannot go to make a proper complaint and rely on for protection;
It is a consequence of a corrupt and inept court system where there is no just resolution to matters - only family, friends and lovers are favored;
It is a consequence of a outdated and disqualified education system where teachers are driven by salaries rather than their student's achievement;
It is a consequence of a bastardized political system that continuously bull-shits the public into electing the most incompetent imbeciles that could ever hold public office.
These are not exhaustive of the causes, but for the most part, shooting is a consequence, not the cause.
joeblow 4 years, 4 months ago
... still not an excuse to commit crimes my friend. People choose not to embrace the reality that they can choose their future! Stop making excuses!!! You are not responsible for what other do, but you are responsible for what you choose to do !!!!
Having character and integrity is a choice. People CHOOSE not to exercise that choice!! Stop with the crap!!!!!!!
Godson 4 years, 4 months ago
You'll have a licensed commercial bank ripping of the public and the Central Bank refuses to intervene.... People would naturally feel like shooting. Institutions of crooks!
joeblow 4 years, 4 months ago
only animals without intellect would take the path you have presented! Your choices are idiotic and will only entrench the cycle of violence. Why can't you see that?
GodSpeed 4 years, 4 months ago
Marching won't fix the issues in the US and copying it won't fix the issues here. Stop watching CNN, MSNBC and the rest of that garbage.
joeblow 4 years, 4 months ago
... on that we agree!
tribanon 4 years, 4 months ago
Repost: She should be stripped of her 'tiny' $18,000 annual budget altogether which presumably still includes the ridiculous sum of $10,000 per annum for her garden tea parties. The money should go towards feeding many of the elderly and young children who are literally starving in our country today because of the many failed policies and ventures of her husband like the $150+ million he has so far plowed into his great Grand Lucayan boondoggle.
And I hope we taxpayers are not funding her god-awful looking hairdo!
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