'Have we lost our heads?!'
Published:Wednesday | July 27, 2011 | 12:00 AM
- Beheadings over the past week spark terror in Jamaica
Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer
"HAVE WE all lost our heads?!" seems to be the collective thought of outraged and frightened Jamaicans, as sharp bladed instruments are chosen to inflict dastardly deeds.
Gary Emanuel Smith, a 37-year-old father of four, took his last breath early Saturday morning as a precursor to the mourning of members of the August Town community.
He was the fourth person to be beheaded last week.
When The Gleaner touched base with residents in August Town on Monday, it was difficult to say which was more pronounced, mourning, or the terrifying sound of silent fear.
If the weapons used in heinous activities are signals, knives and machetes are turning criminals and the uncontrollable in society into raging, bloodthirsty butchers.
The Police High Command and the political directorate have jumped at every opportunity to reel off figures showing that crime has dipped by more than 40 per cent for the first half of 2011, when compared with 2010.
But statistics are cold comfort to those recoiling in fear and terror from a revolting trend.
Jamaicans say they do not want to be part of the statistics.
Sandra, one of Smith's neighbours, complained that the police seem helpless.
"We worried, cause we don't know who is next," she told The Gleaner.
Little comfort
For many Jamaicans, police data flaunting a decline in serious criminality, and emphasised by politicians as well as senior crime-fighters at every turn, is little comfort for them when the deeds of men appear to have taken a turn for the worst.
The nation was shocked into silence when a man by the name of Scott Shane Thomas, 18, a labourer of Lauriston, was decapitated on Tuesday of last week.
The shock had hardly worn off less than 48 hours later when the nation got news that two more persons had been beheaded.
The sensibilities of most law-abiding Jamaicans were jolted further, when it was revealed that the victims were women - a mother and daughter - Charmaine Couver-Rattray, 40, and her 19-year-old daughter, Joeith Lynch otherwise called 'Crystal'.
Another murdered
In the midst of the turmoil sparked by the dreadful nature of the slaughters, news emerged that another Kingston College student was murdered.
The murder happened less than a month after another student, Khajeel Mais', death, elicited reactions from Jamaicans.
The police say 15-year-old Timon Thompson, a resident of Bull Retreat in Gordon Town, St Andrew, was walking along the Mavis Bank main road about 5 a.m. last week Tuesday, when he was approached by a relative and stabbed with a sharp implement.
Blood continued to be shed, when a 13-year-old girl fatally stabbed a 21-year-old pregnant woman.
The murder accused is in a place of safety.