THE EDITOR, Sir:
I AM just returning from the scene of another murder, this one was my watchman who had been saving for months to build a little house for his mother and father, and somehow his attackers had found out and shot him dead.
I had become numb to the various killings, they have blended into each other. It is with deep melancholy that I reflect on the extreme sadness shown by the mother of Meisha-Gaye Tomlin, the 16-year-old, pretty Queen's High School student who was stabbed to death by men, one of them allegedly a coke head, along Waltham Park Road, as he tried to rob her cellphone.
A POOR WOMAN
The mother's grief is evident and my heart goes out to her, but I think also of what it really means, yes, what it has really done to her. She was a poor woman living off Waltham Park Road, i.e,. in a ghetto community. She was ambitious and good, for she had two daughters and both were in recognised high schools, one at Wolmer's, a testament to a courageous mother, sacrificing for her children.
It is for us to understand that the child was her investment, for her there was no stocks, no bonds, no mutual investment funds, no retirement plan accounts, no fixed deposits, indeed the child represented her trust in a future, and her promise of things to come. She did her part, the child was doing her part and then their great plans were brutally shattered by that murderous thug.
But this letter is not just about remorse for that will not bring Meisha-Gaye back; rather it is about what now?
I want the Minister of National Security and the Minister of Justice to come together to make provision for people such as that poor mother or the family of my watchman. The family's aspirations are to be buried, their hopes need to be returned.
There must be a meaningful victim support fund to take on cases such as these. The money would come from a fund to be administered by the Ministry of Justice, in that all judges would immediately add 15 per cent to the fines that they now impose. So whenever, Judge Gayle the senior Resident Magistrate at Half-Way Tree, now fines a criminal $30,000 for wounding, he would instead fine him $30,000 plus $4,500, the difference to go towards a victim support fund. Multiply this on a national scale and the children of the fatherless victims could go back to school, the elderly parents could have support, the burials could be paid for, and the dreams could be restored in a painless way and all our consciences would be soothed for this present society's failings.
The fight against crime demands these further remedies, for after all, we are the ones who have to live with those who suffer, after the deaths of their beloved.
I am, etc.,
DR. J.V. FORD
jephthahford@hotmail.com
Vanford Medical Centre
Kingston 19
Via Go-Jamaica
