Teens chopped to death laid to rest

Launtia Cuff, Gleaner Writer

HUNDREDS OF community members on Monday gathered at Thornton Primary School, St Elizabeth, to pay their final respects and show their support for the families of 15-year-olds Ashnell Coke and Desrick Williams, who were laid to rest after they were brutally murdered on January 8.

The bodies of the students were found at about 1:30 on the morning of January 9 in Thornton district in north-east St Elizabeth with chop wounds.

Minister of National Security Peter Bunting said the loss of two young lives is something that one can never get accustomed to hearing about. He added that the situation should offer the society the opportunity to reflect on how it can make its way back from its current dilemma.

SAD AND SORROWFUL

"Every life is precious, but to have two young men - children still in the very mornings of their lives - taken away, is particularly sad and sorrowful. I can say, as minister of national security, every morning, I get a report from police control, and I, unfortunately, hear in detail the serious incidents of violence that have taken place overnight, and I have had over 2,000 of these related to me every morning for the last two years.

"But when I heard of this one, it still felt like my heart was tearing open in sorrow for the parents and the families and the communities.

"What I think this incident gives us an opportunity to do is to reflect as a society and as a community around how we can come back, how we can turn back this tide of violence that seems to have taken over the most peaceful rural districts. What it tells us is that crime and violence is not something that we are isolated from, based on where we live," Bunting said.

Member of parliament (MP) for North East St Elizabeth, Raymond Pryce, said until members of the society accept their responsibility for reporting ills, such tragedies would continue to occur.

He was speaking against the background of numerous threats that had been made by the suspect in the murders, 26-year-old Alton Baker, who repeatedly said he was going to chop someone, in addition to the fact that the accused was on bail for a charge of wounding when the crime was committed.

The MP implored community members to come forward with information whenever they observed things that were wrong in their community.

Head of the St Elizabeth police, Senior Superintendent Dezeita Taylor, urged residents to avoid vigilante justice.