AS OUR own records show, students of the Denham Town Primary School in West Kingston stoned the Denham Town police station in 1997. Five years later in 2001, the station was stoned again, presumably by another set of students from the same school.
An altercation between a female teacher and members of the security forces was said to have sparked the 1997 incident for which the school board apologised to the police. The 2001 stoning was prompted by a rumour. The students apparently mistook a courtesy call by Jamaica Defence Force personnel as an 'arrest' of the principal.
Against that background, Denham Town Primary reclaimed the spotlight of infamy last Friday as students again stoned the police station. This attack was part of the eruption of violence in the area, said to have been a protest against the shooting of a 14-year-old schoolmate. One fatality and the burning of two patrol vehicles indicate the scale of violence, yet another in a series of protests, which have threatened social stability in various communities across the island.
This time the police have indicated that they are reviewing video footage to determine what action may be taken against the students involved. We have to presume that since the 1997 incident, the passage of time means that, in all likelihood, a different set of students have been involved in the latest attack on the station. The implication of this is that precious little was done, neither by the school administration, nor the police authorities, to prevent this disgraceful behaviour by the students.
The state of indiscipline in the society generally has been widely acknowledged, and the reasons, ranging from dysfunctional families to a general coarsening of social intercourse, have been cited ad nauseam.
The persistent violence in the school system itself, suggests that some of it is likely to spill over into some communities, or indeed, vice versa. This may well have happened in Denham Town.
Earlier this month in one of our series of Editors' Forums, a teacher spoke of "the losing battle" teachers are waging in order to cope with the problem.
It is reprehensible in the extreme, that students in school uniform should be able to mount a violent assault on a police station, whatever the motivation. Had there been retaliation by way of gunfire in self-defence, the prospect of major tragedy is too horrible to contemplate.The police must investigate the incident thoroughly, to put an end once and for all, to this juvenile aberration that must be condemned from the highest level.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
