Our hope is again punctured!

By a concerned citizen

HIS name was Leon Westerman. At 28, the first murder victim of 2008 was gunned down on his way out of a bar just before midnight on Tuesday, January 29th.
 
According to the police report, two masked gunmen fired multiple shots at Leon, who succumbed to his wounds at the Alexandra Hospital.
 
The headlines soon blared: Nevis has recorded the Federation’s first homicide for 2008.  Pathologist Steven Jones of Barbados would later find that Leon’s death was caused by hemorrhage and shock due to gunshot injuries to the abdomen.
 
St. Kitts seemingly dodged the bullet of recording the first murder of the year in the Federation.  However, one week earlier, on January 22nd, St. Kitts saw its eighth shooting incident for the year, if one counted New Year’s Eve.
 
On December 31st, 2007, according to the police report, around 5:30 p.m., a 17-year-old girl from Crab Hill, Sandy Point “was in her bedroom when she was shot in the back”.
 
Three and a half hours later at Stone Fort, a Challengers man, according to police, was attacked by three men, “one of whom shot him multiple times in his hand and shoulder before they fled”.

According to the police press release, both gunshot victims were “treated and detained in stable condition”.
 
On January 2nd, a man was shot in the forearm at Bouncing Hill, Sandy Point. On January 5th, a gun was discharged several times during a robbery but no one got shot.  On January 7th at approximately 8:00 a.m., in the vicinity of the St. Mary’s Anglican Church, a masked man discharged several rounds from a firearm at an Upper Cayon man, according to the police report. On January 11th around 3:00 a.m., a Stone Fort man was shot in his chest and buttocks and later detained “in stable condition”. On January 14th, two masked gunmen held up a delivery van in Saho Village, Sandy Point. According to police, “one round was discharged in the process, but no one was injured”. On January 22nd, an Ottley’s Village man was at home when, according to police, “someone pointed a gun through a window and shot him in the leg”. On February 3rd, a shooting occurred on Central Street at 9:45 p.m.

Another shooting occurred on February 12th at 7:25 p.m. on Back Street in Cayon.

In early February, police found ammunition in the Basseterre area, bringing the number of firearms recovered by security forces in 2008 to seven; that is one-third of the amount that they discovered or seized in the previous year. Police recovered 21 firearms and over 300 rounds in 2007.
 
On February 26th, the Royal St. Christopher-Nevis Police Force held their fifth town hall meeting for the year to discuss the crime situation with residents and political and community leaders.  This one was held in the Conaree community.
 
Hailing the fifth town hall meeting a success, the police issued a press release, which said that, at the forum, residents expressed concern over a number of issues:
1) lack of or slow response to reports made by Conaree residents;
2) the targeting of youths in Conaree; 
3) restrictions on the use of the cricket field by residents;
4) concerns about confidentiality in the Police Force;
5) community perception of the police; and
6) the community’s role in raising children.
 
The optimistic press release, which pointed out that political rivals, Honourable Cedric Liburd and Eugene Hamilton, shook hands in a show of friendship at the town hall meeting, ended with this announcement: “The next town hall meeting is scheduled for Cayon on Tuesday 11th March”. 
 
In an ironic twist, on March 12th, the only release the police issued was a grim one. The headline read: Police investigate first murder in St. Kitts.
 
On March 11th around 10:50 p.m., 21-year-old Derrick Gumbs, Jr. aka Jake of Ponds Extension was found in Newtown lying in the street...dead from gunshot wounds.
 
In that incident, the bullets not only punctured a car that was parked nearby but also the hopes of a nation...that everything would be alright. So, the public is numb, only grazed by the irony that a shooting last night took place in the vicinity of Hope Chapel on George Street, Newtown. 
 
Hope has been punctured again.
 
May God be with us, live in our hearts, and keep hope alive.