Days after news emerged that a student was found with a gun in her bag, a female from an inner-city community in Kingston has come out to call on local authorities investigating the case to take time out to probe all angles in the matter.
The woman, who for security reasons asked not to be named, says she once found herself in such a situation, and it was not a case where she was willing to participate in the exercise.
The female was quick to point out that she could not speak on the matter reported in the media because she did not have all the details.
“When I was going to school it was something that gang members do to students to avoid police detection. They would wait for us as students, as we were traveling to school, they would stop us and demand that we put illegal weapons in our bags to transport to the other end of the road, where other members of their gang would wait to collect,” said the 35-year-old female, in an interview with Loop News.
She said that as a student she was not in support of the practice but would have to participate out of fear as that was the route she would have to take to school on a daily basis. Also, she said it was a community that she was living in at that time, and had to pass gang members daily.
The female said the situation also brought out another issue that local authorities were not looking into on a deeper basis.
The police are asking people to report crimes but where are the protective systems for those people who have to go back to the very communities where the perpetrators are living.
Another female living in a St Andrew community said she fell victim to a similar situation where she was physically abused by a male living in the same yard. The female said after she reported the matter and was given a court date, she was forced to walk past the same perpetrator on a daily basis until the matter was resolved.
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The abused female, similar to the woman who said she fell victim to the practice of gang members forcing her as a student to carry illegal weapons in their bags, also zoomed in on the issue of what parents would do if they found their child with a firearm.
“Obviously the right thing to do is to report the matter to the police, that is always the right choice but what happens to the parent who have to live in the same community where gang member who are owners of the gun are living, after handing over the weapon how effective are systems to protect them from future attacks,” said the women.
The women were adamant that if the government wanted to clamp down on crime they had to implement more effective systems to remove the fear factor and to ensure that people who reported crimes felt safe to remain in their homes and communities.