Nobody gets involved

WHILE members of the public grow more disturbed over the crime situation and the failure of the Police to curb the menace, a 41-year-old mother of four was brutally murdered before a crowd of onlookers without anyone raising a finger to help her. Juliet Victoria Cummings was attacked while she sat in a maxi-taxi at the NIPDEC car park and maxi-taxi hub in Princes Town on Saturday night. Her assailant began stabbing her in the vehicle, then he dragged her out in the road where he finished the job by slitting her throat. So vicious was the attack, we are told, that Cummings was stabbed more than 20 times and that she was almost beheaded.

What worries us about this act of murder is not only its savagery but the reaction of the many persons who stood by watching the slaughter as if it were the scene in a movie. No one even thought of reporting the killing to the Princes Town police. Indeed, it becomes even more alarming to learn that the Police had difficulty in getting eye witnesses to state what they saw and to identify the knife-wielding attacker. We understand that the taxi driver, who fled when the violence began, was unable to positively identify the suspect who, with the bloody knife in his hand, was heard screaming "who next? who next?" before bolting into nearby bushes. Another man who claimed to have seen the killer running away from the scene refused to help the Police. Eileen Mendoza, mother of the slain woman, said: "Everyone calling his name as the murderer but nobody telling the police." We understand that it took some time for Police investigators to find one eye witness willing to talk and, as a result, a man has been arrested and charged. Still, it is our view that the killing of this helpless mother, who had been desperately seeking protection, was so horrible that, even if they were too coward to help her then, at the very least, the on-lookers should all be determined to see justice done and, therefore, quite willing to assist the Police in this case.

But, sad to say, this was not their reaction. It is all well and good for members of the public to express their anger over what they see as the inadequacy of the Police to deal with the crime problem. However, the murder of Juliet Cummings tells us that many do not understand that as citizens the problem is also theirs, that they have a compelling responsibility to act in the prevention of crime, in assisting the Police to solve cases of crime and to bring culprits to justice. We have pointed out ad nauseam already that the task of curbing the prevalence of criminal activity in TT is one for the entire society, that every citizen must help in this national objective where possible. It is an egregious abdication for anyone, having witnessed the committing of a serious crime, to say, "look, I don't want to get involved. The Police are paid to deal with crime; let them handle it." That attitude is self-centred, myopic, cowardly, uncivic, and totally inimical to the task of building a national society. Unfortunately, it is an attitude that still infects a large percentage of our population. There are so-called citizens who would be the first to join a demonstration demanding stronger action from the authorities against crime but who, like the onlookers at Cummings' killing, are not themselves prepared to do anything to combat the scourge or even to bring one criminal to justice. Maybe we should stop fooling ourselves; maybe we are not as caring, as concerned and as responsible a society as we would like to believe. Maybe we should simply accept the fact that we cannot avoid becoming "Americanised," succumbing to a culture where violence is ingrained and nobody gets involved.