Who will avenge them?

THE KILLING of children, particularly by adults who should have greater understanding and mature control of their feelings, is a heinous crime. The Police, in our view, should employ every resource at their command to bring child murderers to justice, and relatives and other persons with any knowledge about who may be responsible should be forthcoming and helpful in this necessary effort. Earlier this year, the country was appalled as the horrible fate of 11-year-old Akiel Chambers was made public in testimony given at the Coroner’s inquest conducted by Chief Magistrate Sherman Mc Nicolls. Akiel attended the birthday party of a friend at Haleland Park on May 23, 1998, and his body was found, in a crouching position, in the swimming pool the next morning by Police officers visiting the scene. What is truly shocking about Akiel’s murder is not only the fact that he died by strangulation but that he was also buggered before and, as the inquest revealed, the little boy had been the victim of someone who had been sexually assaulting him repeatedly that way for quite some time.

It is scandalous to think that such a vicious crime could have been committed at or shortly after a birthday party attended by several children and adults, and the killer has not yet been caught. Coroner Mc Nicolls could not extract enough evidence from witnesses to clearly identify the culprit and, accordingly, he sent the matter back to the Police for further investigations. But since the case file was returned to the Homicide Bureau last May, we have heard nothing more about this terrible episode. Last week Tuesday, another 11-year-old boy, Judel Jeran Padmore died at the Intensive Care Unit of the Mt Hope Hospital from the brutal head battering he received at the hands of four men who abducted him on June 6, while he was walking home from school in Diego Martin. If the report of this killing is true, then the four men who attacked the primary school boy had appointed themselves a posse of avengers, exacting retribution for one of his school- mates, a girl with whom he had a fight, kicking her in the fracas.

Four grown men taking it out on an 11-year-old child; what kind of madness is this? Did they seek to hear the other side of the story? Did they want to know what the quarrel between the youngsters was all about? Was Judel’s kick, however bad, the response to some kind of provocation? Didn’t they think it proper to consult the boy’s parents in seeking a settlement of this matter? Apparently not; it seems the avengers decided that Judel was playing “big and bad” and that he needed to be taught a lesson, so the four of them got together to deal with the 11-year-old. It appears that Judel himself may have regretted kicking the girl since he told his mother about it. But the avengers were not concerned about that; in their fire rage one kick deserved a battery of blows to the head, injuries from which the boy died some three weeks later.

Our fear is that the killing of Akiel and Judel will eventually go unpunished, as they will have no avengers even according to the laws of our country. The Police, we understand, are investigating, but two months have passed since the Akiel case was sent back to them and yet no one has been charged. We wait to see what the outcome will be in Judel’s death. The kidnapping of children for ransom is a frightening development on the local crime scene, but the deliberate sexual and physical brutality inflicted on them by killers are crimes crying out to high heaven. Will these hapless young victims ever be avenged?