The Editor, Sir:

Last weekend, a friend called to tell me that a little eight-year-old girl, a classmate of her own daughter, was tied up by men who had invaded her home and she then watched as her parents were killed. Just this morning I received a call from a young lady who had gone off to Kingston (with some apprehension) to study nursing, to tell me that she is coming back to the country. She was not only terrified of hearing gunshots most nights, but her grandmother with whom she was staying had been robbed in her own home on the weekend. She had her heart set on becoming a physical therapist. It was her dream.

Kidnapped

And, just a couple of weeks ago an employee of my son-in-law, on his way to make a bank deposit, was kidnapped right off the street, thrown into a car and driven to a nearby location where he was relieved of the deposit. A woman was with the gunmen and she ordered that the employee be killed but, as luck would have it, the gunmen let him go and he survived, very shaken, to live to tell the tale. These are but a few daily tragedies, most of which don't make the news, that change peoples lives forever.

In the '70s, I would be all over Princess, Barry, and West streets, even Spanish Town Road every week taking orders and collecting cheques from customers of our family's business. Those were the heady days of relative peace and quiet. I never heard a gunshot in those days, never felt threatened, and there was more civility at all levels of society. I wouldn't go into those areas now.

'How much longer?'

Nothing else matters much if one cannot go about his or her ordinary business without fear of somehow facing a nightmarish experience. Beverley Anderson-Manley is speaking for all of us when she asks, "How much longer can we continue to live in a country where we feel unsafe?" I couldn't agree more with another of her statements, "What is needed is the kind of powerful intervention by the State - the likes of which we have never seen before."

I've said something like this before and I'm sure many, many Jamaicans have said the same thing. I am ready for any sacrifice of time or money to see that our young people get to grow up as I did in the '50s. Believe me, it was a wonderful time to be a kid.

Mrs. Manley's call for parliamentarians to stand up and find a way, "find the money", and make a plan to deal with the scourge of crime and violence now is the right call. Many of us feel it's almost too late and hope is fading. We need this matter of crime to take centre stage. Violent death is becoming a 'way of life'. We need an all-out war on violent crime. I hope our leaders are listening.

Jamaica, Land We Love ...

I am, etc.,

D. EATON

pepper@cwjamaica.com