The question that must be on everybody’s mind, is that who will get shot this weekend?
People are worried and they have every right to be so.
Because, before, it appeared that the gun-play that was happening in the Federation was between rivals gangs. All that changed when early last Sunday morning a hard working couple was shot during a robbery of their business.
What makes this crime even more heinous was that the robbers aimed for their heads. In other words they were aiming to kill.
However, Nevis authorities have chosen to charge the two men with just two counts of wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm.
If a man is going to fire at another person’s head, then his intentions are quite clear. He wants to kill.
The men should both be charged with attempted murder.
For quite sometime people have called for a tougher stance on crime. Apparently the authorities are not listening and hooligans are running around the Federation looking for people to shoot at.
In January The Observer carried a front page story about a woman, Nidiya Wharton, of Ogie’s Village, who was viciously attacked in her own home.
She was attacked by a man she had been involved with for 10 years. This same man, Ashton Williams, who is also known as Tuba, is the father of their 8-year-old son.
Tuba did not go alone that night to attack Wharton. Police allege Tuba took a friend with him, and they broke through Wharton’s window.
It is alleged that as Tuba’s friend held her down, Tuba used a knife and began carving up the mother of his child.
The Observer has since then done a number of stories on the issue, and one thing is clear. People in authority do not want to talk about the case.
Domestic violence is bad, but we do not want to talk about it right now, they said. Others have said they need to thread carefully on the matter.
So why have meetings and symposiums when clearly people are choosing to ignore the issue. Especially, those who are in position of authority and who can make meaningful changes.
Sadly, it would take a couple more women to die from domestic abuse before policies and laws are changed to protect them.
Is that what we are waiting on?
For more people to die before something meaningful is done to curve the rise in gun use?
