Are we monsters?
What kind of monsters are being produced in this society? A 14-month-old baby is now dead, shot through the head by a killer who was attempting to shoot another man. There is a slight possibility that the baby was, to use the infamously callous phrase, unintentional "collateral damage." But it is more likely that the killer knew perfectly well that there was an infant, a teenage girl, and a 74-year-old man in the wooden shack that he sprayed with bullets from a shotgun. He just didn’t care who else he killed in his attempt to get his main target. This is shocking, but not surprising. On December 23, this newspaper predicted that it was just a matter of time before a gun-toting bandit murdered an infant. In that month, six-year-old Hakeem Rodney-Caliste and 14-year-old Isaiah Phillip were hit by bullets in exactly the same kind of situation — killers attempting to put a hit on another man. We would have preferred this prediction had never come true. But, on Monday, exactly one month later, it did. Baby Zakia Mitchell was shot while in the arms of her 15-year-old mother, Kadeisha Mitchell, who is herself in critical condition. The girl’s mother, Erlene Baptiste, is 34 years old. Those ages tell a story: the mother having her daughter at 19, the daughter in turn conceiving her child at 14. Here is a tale of poverty and desperation that is now becoming all too common in this wealthy nation, and which was surely an indirect factor in this tragedy. And the fact that this murder happened in the seaside village of Mayaro should sound a warning to the security forces if they have been somewhat complacent because most of these gang-style acts have been mainly confined to the East-West corridor. We hope Police Commissioner Trevor Paul will see the importance of putting extra effort into bringing the perpetrator of this heinous crime to justice. There is an unfortunate pattern emerging where the murders and kidnappings of prominent persons seem to receive a far more vigorous response from the authorities than the same acts perpetrated against average citizens. In this case, it is very poor people involved. But a baby has been killed, and the killer cannot be allowed to walk free. Commissioner Paul should not leave this investigation up to the Mayaro police, but should send his best investigators to assist. This act should also make all thinking people in the society sit back and take stock. We must all ask ourselves how this murder defines our society. It may seem unfair to tar the entire nation with the brush of one callous killer. But that killer seems representative of a new breed of criminals, so far outside normal society that they are unrecognisable as typical Trinidadians. But there’s the rub: these persons are very much products of Trinidad. And we need to identify what factors in our mainstream and supposedly respectable society is creating these monsters in our midst.
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"Are we monsters?"