By Nagra Plunkett, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
A 17-YEAR-OLD male student of a school in Hanover is facing murder charges after he allegedly use a knife to stab a bus driver with whom he had an argument at the school gate yesterday.
The murder of Derrick 'Scoochie' Bennett, a 50-year-old resident of Shrewsbury Housing Scheme, Westmoreland, resulted in scores of angry bus operators using debris to block a section of the roadway, in the vicinity of the school.
When the police cleared the roadblock, the bus drivers, many of whom ply the Savanna-la-Mar to Montego Bay route, withdrew their services for the entire day.
"Most of the students don't have any behaviour. They cut up the seats in the buses, they refuse to pay fares and disrespect adults," said Donovan Nesbeth, a driver.
Reports from Corporal Sandra Salmon, a Constabulary Communication Network (CCN) officer, are that the incident took place about 10:30 a.m. She said that the student boarded Bennett's bus in Montego Bay and disembarked at the school. The accused teenager reportedly got in an argument with Bennett over the change he was given from the $100 note he tendered to the driver. Further reports are that Bennett went back inside his vehicle and was about to drive off when he heard a banging sound on the bus.
It is said that he alighted from the bus and another argument developed with the youth during which the boy reportedly took a knife from his pocket and stabbed Bennett in the right side of his neck.
Bennett was carried to the Cornwall Regional Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The police subsequently held the teen on the school grounds.
Commanding officer for Hanover, Deputy Superintendent Linnette Williams-Martin, who referred to the incident as "a sad occasion," said the police have had to visit the school several times to reprimand students about their indiscipline. "We will have to go back to the drawing board to formulate new strategies to deal with the problem," she said.
