Garth RattrayCRIMINAL PREDATORS were so intent on robbing and murdering 35-year-old taxi driver Richard Howell that they fired several shots at and into his body. Not far away was Mrs. Gretel McDonald sitting peacefully in the "safety" of her own bedroom doing crossword puzzles, as was her habit for many years. An errant bullet penetrated one of the closed wooden louvre windows. Travelling at over 300 metres/second, it struck her in the head killing her instantly. Her husband had heard the gunshots and called her to the rear of the house. When she failed to appear, he went to investigate and found his wife of 51 years lying dead on the bed.
GRIEF-STRICKEN
The catastrophe has left her family, relatives and friends grief-stricken. It is an indictment on our entire society that she should become the victim of the unpredictable, senseless violence so prevalent in our country today. Bad enough that they murdered Mr. Howell for his hard-earned wages, but the situation took on a unique poignancy when a stray bullet killed this little old lady whose family made every effort to protect her from the violence on the streets.
So, on Mother's Day of all days, the obituary section of the Sunday Gleaner carried the death announcement of Mrs. Gretel McDonald. This gentle 76-year-old wife, mother of 8 and grandmother of 17 whom we all expected to die from natural causes, met with a violent end instead. What has our country come to when a quiet, retiring, elderly lady is shot and killed in her own bedroom, minding her own business? I happen to know that her faith and strength helped her overcome several serious medical conditions, it's sad to see her life end like this.
FUNERAL COST
So we continue to bury our dead. But, since murders, unlike "acts of God", result from our social failures, it seems cruel and unfair for the grieving families of the victims of criminal activity to have to turn around and find the money to bury their loved ones. I believe that the cost of the funerals of all victims of crime should be shared, and in some cases completely funded by the government. Crime is a recalcitrant problem, but now that the violence, aggression and cavalier shooting of our citizens has acquired this new level, something has to be done and soon.
My list of patients and friends killed by wanton violence is growing at a rapid rate. A constant stream of homicide victims pours from all quarters of society. The deluge of names is rising steadily like unstoppable floodwaters in a storm of criminal activities. We see and hear daily reports of our fellow Jamaicans "found suffering from gunshot wounds, taken to hospital and pronounced dead".
Let me put this into perspective: After about 14 months of war in Iraq, 557 American servicemen and women died from hostile fire (the total death toll is 780, other causes include suicides and occupational mishaps). Even though Iraq represents a combat situation, the people of the United States find those figures appallingly unacceptable and it could very well cost President Bush his job. It's only four and a half months into this year and already we in Jamaica have had about 450 murders!
ARREST CRIME
Perhaps for effect we should paint an indelible blood-red "X" near every location where someone has been murdered. Maybe when people see them eventually coalescing into one big crimson blotch covering most of the island, they will start doing their part to arrest crime.
Prize-winning anchor and senior editor of ABCNEWS' World News Tonight, Peter Jennings, renowned for his reputation for independence and excellence in broadcast journalism, read the names of fallen American soldiers and marines on air. In spite of conservative and Republican Party protestations, he did it to honour their sacrifice and to highlight the fact that people are dying at an alarming rate. We too should read all the names of our victims to make the point that far too many of our people are being slaughtered. They deserve to be recognised as individual victims and not just part of some stolid and macabre statistic.
Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family
practice.
