2016’s woeful end

Six killings overnight from Friday into yesterday surely would have dented any hope that the year would have ended without the sad and horrific spectre that has been haunting us, and that the clich?d greeting of Happy New Year would not have rung hollow.

It was indeed a woeful end to another year of murderous trauma.

The tale of the crime scene tape is as follows: Four persons were shot dead in Beverly Hills, Laventille, a man was shot dead in Caparo, while a teenager was stabbed to death at Enterprise.

These deaths pushed up the country’s 2016 homicide rate to 461 deaths, the worst toll in recent times.

The Laventille killings allude to a new trend of mass-shootings seen this year, as perpetrated twice in D’Abadie including one case of a ride-by shooting carried out by a man on a bicycle.

Overnight also, a murder- accused hanged himself dead in a police cell, so begging the question as to why no CCTV are routinely used to monitor cells instead of just the routine hourly visits by a police officer? A population that is by now crime-fatigued and weary of the constant knee-jerk reaction by the authorities claiming to have this or that plan, must surely now be asking themselves, “What’s next?” After all, a less bizarre scenario triggered a state of emergency by the People’s Partnership Government a few years ago. This is really no way for a people to live, as even the routine chore of going to the local parlour to buy bread now carries with it a grave risk, as seen in the shock shooting death of an innocent teenaged boy earlier this year, again the victim of a mass-shooting.

We endorse economist Dr Roger Hosein’s recent warning that crime makes local entrepreneurs become extremely wary of investing in high-profile activities in view of all including the criminal element. Foreign investors too will be very sceptical to bring vaunted foreign direct investment to our unsettled shores.

In addition to the usual “crime-fighting” stance against crime by more police and soldiers, more guns and more vehicles and vessels, a criminological approach must also become central to any plan.

White-collar crime - such as exposed in ministerial accounts of the Financial Intelligence Unit’s annual report and which drives street-level criminality - must also be stemmed.

We would agree that a lessening of crime does not occur overnight - short of a State of Emergency with a curfew - but we would certainly not encourage any abrogation of responsibility from undertaking the hours, days, weeks and months of “dog-work” by the authorities, the NGO sector and each of us to reduce the propensity towards criminality.

With all of this in mind, it is not exactly an environment in which the wish for a Happy New Year resonates without some type of divine intervention.

That is why we opt to wish all our readers a Blessed New Year