Akash Sama­roo

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is plead­ing with the pub­lic to help save the coun­try and stop pro­tect­ing mur­der­ers.

Re­spond­ing to the killing of six-year-old Kylie Mal­oney, in San­gre Grande, on Sun­day the Prime Min­is­ter said in or­der to stem the mur­der rate in this coun­try if some­one knows some­thing they must say some­thing. He said this in­for­ma­tion is vi­tal as the po­lice of­fi­cers are not ma­gi­cians.

He said, “Many peo­ple know who is do­ing what and what is go­ing on, you can save a life, you can save this coun­try by giv­ing up those who have tak­en it up­on them­selves to live their life at the end of an AR-15 (as­sault ri­fle).

Those boys who are do­ing that they have moth­ers, un­cles, broth­ers, friends they have cousins, if you know some­thing, do the coun­try a favour and stop pro­tect­ing these crim­i­nals.”

The Prime Min­is­ter said the high-pow­ered ri­fles that have found them­selves in the hands of crim­i­nals and their main pur­pose is to shed blood and it does not mat­ter whose blood it is.

“I mean a six-year-old child, a six-year-old child,” Row­ley un­der­scored, “falling prey to peo­ple who be­lieve they have the right to go to some­body’s door, where your home is sup­posed to be your cas­tle, blow it down, go in­side and shoot up who­ev­er they want in­side there to set­tle what­ev­er score they have to set­tle,” he added.

When Guardian Me­dia asked what mes­sage the Prime Min­is­ter had for the fam­i­lies of those who lost their lives in 2022 to present, he said the fo­cus should not be on the sta­tis­tics.

“Is not a mat­ter of how many peo­ple have been killed, there’s no ac­cept­able fig­ure, this coun­try has been go­ing down that road.

“What we should be con­cerned about in the face of this chal­lenge is the preva­lence of the fam­i­lies in­volved in these mat­ters both at the lev­el of per­pe­tra­tor and vic­tim and the wider na­tion­al fam­i­ly and al­so the method by which these out­rages are be­ing car­ried out.

“I don’t know if you no­ticed but fre­quent­ly in re­cent times, the bulk of those killings or the break­ing through of doors in­volve firearms of the heav­ier types, the ones which came on the scene in the not too dis­tant past and the preva­lence of am­mu­ni­tion which was at one time very scarce in this coun­try.”

The Prime Min­is­ter said there was a time in this coun­try’s his­to­ry where that type of am­mu­ni­tion could on­ly be found on the gun range in Ch­aguara­mas.

And in the pres­ence of Fitzger­ald Hinds at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre where the Prime Min­is­ter host­ed the me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Row­ley was asked by Guardian Me­dia if he still has con­fi­dence in his Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter.

“I said be­fore if there is any min­is­ter in my Gov­ern­ment that I do not have con­fi­dence in, at the mo­ment that con­fi­dence is lost that will be the last day they are in the Cab­i­net.”