AFTER AN argument with his sister, a man, apparently deranged and refusing to take his medication (itself a signal of impending danger), sits sharpening his machete in the rural district ironically named 'Recourse'. As Hermalyne Taylor leaves the house, her four-month-old daughter in her arms, the man's mind plunges over the precipice of rationality, the machete flashes, and he has killed the baby, her sister and her cousin. In the terrible onslaught three adults are also attacked and seriously wounded, including the mother of the infant.
The machete wielder flees into the hills but is cornered there by outraged members of the community. Machetes flash again as the mob chops him to death in revenge for the wanton slaughter. The tragedy, it seems, contains its own closure for it is unlikely that the police will ever be able to arrest anyone for the vigilante killing. Everybody ends up being a victim, the innocent children, the adults fighting for their lives in hospital, the deranged attacker, even the mob, unthinking slaves to their own blood lust.
Although a case of much greater provocation, the Recourse horror is reminiscent of the University of Technology students who hunted down a car thief, lit a ring of fire around a cistern where he was hiding and watched him drown.
There can hardly be any consolation taken from these tragedies except to learn how important it is for society to defend the rule of law and to take mental illness seriously. In America 2.2 million people suffer from schizophrenia and 2.3 million suffer from bipolar disorder, both of which, in extreme cases, can erupt into violence. Deinstitutionalisation, the current jargon, has been blamed for the fact that 40 per cent of these mentally ill Americans are not receiving appropriate treatment, thus increasing the possibilities for domestic violence. We face similar hard choices in Jamaica with the proposed closure of Bellevue Hospital in Kingston.
An equally grave concern is the spread of vigilantism especially in rural communities where there seem to be no constraints on mob killings based on moral considerations and respect for the rule of law. Perhaps this is just another manifestation of people taking the law into their own hands because they feel that the law, in the hands of the State, does not deliver justice.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
