Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion al­der­man Wayne Grif­fith says he is ea­ger­ly await­ing the out­come of the in­ves­ti­ga­tions by school of­fi­cials and po­lice in­to the as­sault on him by Tran­quil­li­ty Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School stu­dents.

Grif­fith was at­tacked two weeks ago by stu­dents while at­tempt­ing to in­ter­vene in a fight in Port-of-Spain. Five stu­dents have since been sus­pend­ed while po­lice con­tin­ue in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the in­ci­dent.

In a What­sApp mes­sage to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said he ex­pects the school prin­ci­pal and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to con­clude a case con­fer­ence that will de­ter­mine the ini­tial course of ac­tion.

“I would like to state that I am ea­ger­ly await­ing the out­come of the process, first­ly by the school prin­ci­pal and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, as it re­lates to the case con­fer­ence, as that will de­cide on the ini­tial ac­tion, whether from sus­pen­sion to ex­pul­sion of those iden­ti­fied thus far,” he said.

Grif­fith said po­lice are con­tin­u­ing ex­ten­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tions to iden­ti­fy all those in­volved, adding that vi­ral footage cir­cu­lat­ing on­line is in­suf­fi­cient in help­ing them to build a case.

“The po­lice on the oth­er hand, as far as I am aware of, are do­ing their ex­ten­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tions as to fur­ther iden­ti­fy all of the bad ac­tors in­volved, as the ini­tial footage that has gone vi­ral doesn’t ful­ly re­flect the be­gin­ning and end of the full episode and the amount of vi­o­lence per­pe­trat­ed by the stu­dents in­volved,” he said.

Grif­fith said he is still re­cov­er­ing from in­juries sus­tained dur­ing the at­tack.

“I am still try­ing to re­cov­er from the on­slaught. I am still ex­pe­ri­enc­ing sig­nif­i­cant pains in sev­er­al parts of my body, headaches and a rup­tured ten­don in my left leg. Hop­ing that there’s no per­ma­nent dam­age,” he said.

He al­so ex­pressed hope that those in­volved will un­der­stand the con­se­quences of their ac­tions.

“I am hop­ing that these vi­o­lent stu­dent ac­tors in the the­atre of the sec­ondary school will come to terms ... that ac­tions have con­se­quences and their ac­tions are a demon­stra­tion of law­less­ness and a lack of re­spect for au­thor­i­ty,” Grif­fith said.

He al­so called on par­ents and adults not to con­done vi­o­lent be­hav­iour.

“I al­so hope that par­ents and adults will not con­done these ac­tions, as we are a na­tion in cri­sis, with the fear of the scourge of crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty tak­ing over our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, the very first pil­lar of the de­vel­op­ment of our na­tion and its fu­ture,” he said.

He fur­ther said the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion faces a ma­jor chal­lenge in ad­dress­ing the men­tal health and so­cial back­ground of af­fect­ed stu­dents and urged that in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes be con­sid­ered.

“These stu­dents must be iden­ti­fied and the min­istry must en­sure that there’s a pro­gramme to as­sist them to achieve the aca­d­e­m­ic goals as set out the school syl­labus.”

Grif­fith added that in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes in oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions could be con­sid­ered as pos­si­ble mod­els.