Chung: Give evidence on what you know about Gabriel King murder
Published:Thursday | April 28, 2022 | 12:05 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
MAIA CHUNG, founder of the Maia Chung Autism and Disabilities Foundation, is urging Jamaicans who may have information concerning the January 13 murder of nine-year-old Gabriel King to tell what they know, in order to aid the ongoing police investigations into the child’s death.
Chung made the impassioned call while at the same time condemning the killing of King, who was autistic, during her keynote address on Monday evening at a joint meeting of the Kiwanis Clubs of St Andrew, Greater Portmore, and Diverse Professionals Portmore Pines. The meeting was held on the Zoom platform in observance of Autism Awareness Month, under the theme ‘Focus on Autism: Always Unique, Totally Interesting, Sometimes Mysterious’.
“Let me make it soak in: Gabriel King, who was definitely challenged, was murdered at nine years old. Think of any nine-year-old that you know, and what is Jamaica about now? We are killing nine-year-olds, and challenged nine-year-olds at that,” Chung lamented.
“The organisation that I represent here on this platform, we condemn this. We are calling out to persons in the community who know something, to give evidence,” Chung added. “We have disintegrated in our morality and in our hearts. We are murdering kids, and it does not matter that he (King) was challenged.”
King was abducted from his mother along the Tucker main road in St James on January 13, after she was reportedly carjacked by assailants while attempting to navigate a pothole. According to reports, the assailants dragged the mother out of her motor car and took the vehicle with the child still in the back seat.
The car was later found abandoned off the Fairfield main road in the parish, and King’s body was found with the throat slashed in the rear of the vehicle.
However, since that time, there have been few updates which have been made public in relation to the investigations into King’s murder. Due to the public demand for updates, the St James Police Division’s commanding officer, Senior Superintendent Vernon Ellis, had to reassure February’s monthly sitting of the St James Municipal Corporation that investigations are progressing but that information has to be carefully released so as not to compromise the police’s ongoing work.
In denouncing King’s brutal slaying, Chung recalled the murders of two other autistic children which came to her foundation’s attention a few years after the organisation was launched in 2008.
“In the first three years of our existence, the foundation had the sad news to report that two seven-year-old Jamaicans, living with their mothers’ partners, were beaten to death. In one instance the child’s stepfather had insisted that nothing was wrong with him,” said Chung.
“This is where the trick come in, because autism is not a presentation on your body; autism is in the brain. It makes you behave and interact oddly, and as such, it puts you at risk and it singles you out,” Chung explained. “Unfortunately, autism prevents you from processing danger. An autistic person will be able to tell you what is two million times one million out of their head, and when it comes to crossing the street they will just walk out.”
Autism is a developmental disorder that affects communication and behaviour, for which symptoms generally appear during the first two years of life. It is categorised together with Pervasive Developmental Disorder and Asperger’s syndrome as Autism Spectrum Disorder.