BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – IN the wake of the murder of yet another young man from and in Cayon, Parliamentary Representative for the area the Hon. Eugene Hamilton is reissuing his appeal for persons to drop their weapons and find more amicable ways of resolving their disputes.
Jermaine Dore, who is originally from Upper Cayon but resided at Hermitage Village, was gunned down on Saturday evening (May 18) while he was reportedly engaged in a game of dominoes in a neighbour’s yard.
Speaking on the platform of the People’s Action Movement (PAM) political meeting a couple of weeks ago, Hamilton made a clarion call for the young people of his village – Cayon – to consider the error of their ways and retire their weapons.
Following Dore’s murder, Hamilton has reissued his call explaining that this type of behaviour could not be condoned.
“I knew Mr. Dore very well! He is the son of Alice, who is one of my very good friends. And I’m distressed that people think it is fashionable to take the life of another by the use of guns rather than to discuss disputes - if there are disputes - and resolve them as civilised people. The cycle never ends! Those who commit the crimes are themselves vulnerable to meet the same end because one family and other people know and they do adopt the same approach rather than having dialogue. Then it is going to be today for you and tomorrow for me.
“And this cannot be condoned at all in any civil society! I want to repeat my call, especially in the middle of this Green Valley Festival, to those who are carrying illegal weapons and who insist on using their weapons in that method to reconsider the harm, reconsider the hurt, consider the families that you have deprived of a father. Consider the father who would be taken from children. When one thinks he hurts a guy by killing him…who really hurts are those children who are depending on a father to nurture them to adulthood. And it is really sad that we don’t think that far.”
Hamilton said this most-recent situation has grieved him and he feels for the family at their time of bereavement.
His plea was that “all the people in the country who are engaged in vigilante justice or carrying out their own method of justice to reconsider the harm that would be caused to their offspring as well as their immediate family…
“I would like to suggest to all the young people to reflect soberly upon their approach to resolve disputes. I am saddened at the loss to Alice and her family and I sympathise with them. I also sympathise with the extended family”.
Meanwhile, a police press release stated that members of the Violent Crime Unit are currently investigating Dore’s death.
Speaking with the St. Kitts-Nevis Observer on the night of the shooting, Commissioner of Police Celvin ‘CG’ Walwyn said that according to eyewitnesses, the 30-year-old Dore was with three other people in the yard, but none of the others were injured.
He also reportedly said the eyewitnesses claimed that the assailant’s face was covered and that in an attempt to track him, a police dog was sent in the direction that the shooter reportedly fled.
The release noted that “the District Medical Officer visited the scene, examined Jermaine Dore and pronounced him dead”.
“Anyone who has any information pertaining to this incident is ask to call the Violent Crime Unit at 465-2241 Ext. 230 or CRIME STOPPERS at 1-800-8477(TIPS). Remember your information will be treated with strictest of confidence,” it added.
