YOUNG SHANEKA Shakes and Kay Ledgister should never have to die the way they did. No child should. But perhaps, just perhaps, their deaths will stir those of us in the rest of this country, who continue to protect the guilty by keeping silent, into the kind of effective action that will see murderers identified, arrested and convicted. The anger and outrage felt by many across Jamaica over the past two days cannot possibly match the pain and anguish of two sets of parents in Town Head, Westmoreland who lost their eight- and nine-year-old daughters to a murderer or murderers two days ago.
This mindless slaughter of the innocents defies understanding. For what degree of depravity could so possess an adult to attack two girls just barely beginning to have an appreciation of life themselves? When it is recalled that this is the second similar attack on a minor in recent months, the first being in Kingston, it leaves the society simultaneously numb and angry, yearning for answers, and inching increasingly closer to irrational behaviour in an effort to find solace, swift justice and closure. No declaration of outrage and anger; no statements from high officials; no demonstration can bring back the lives of the slain girls. But we must not allow ourselves to be petrified or to slip into anarchy.
Yet amid the feelings of anger, we are obliged to congratulate the police for staving off another potential mob killing. With the community's deep desire for vengeance, it was good that the police were able to prevent a repeat of the mob violence that resulted in the death of two would-be robbers, also in Westmoreland a few weeks ago. For, with all the accusations being directed at a suspect, reportedly with prior convictions of sex offences, there was no evidence up to the point of his being attacked by the crowd, to link him clearly with the deaths of the two girls. As difficult as it is for the people of the close-knit community of Town Head and others equally-outraged across the island, they must allow for proper investigation, arrest and conviction.
It is doubtful that cold-blooded killers like the person or persons who took Shaneka's and Kay's lives will ever be concerned about whether capital punishment is being enforced in Jamaica. Such killers are driven by animal instincts and depravity. The need for justice demands however, that they and their kind be found and quickly separated from the rest of humanity.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
