KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says the time has come for the en­tire so­ci­ety to re­view its re­la­tion­ship with the crim­i­nal el­e­ments in the coun­try.

Speak­ing out against Sun­day’s quadru­ple mur­ders, which be­gan in Gon­za­les and end­ed at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (PoS­GH), Dr Row­ley called for the pub­lic’s help to fight crime and ap­pealed to peo­ple to share per­ti­nent in­for­ma­tion through anony­mous chan­nels avail­able.

While of­fer­ing con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims via a state­ment on his so­cial me­dia, Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment stands ready to dis­cuss Sun­day’s mass shoot­ings and sim­i­lar ini­tia­tives with the Op­po­si­tion, if on­ly they will see it as their job.

He added that ex­pect­ed swift pro­cess­ing in the court sys­tem in­stead of man­aged au­to­mat­ic de­lays, will al­so help to close the re­volv­ing doors.

The Prime Min­is­ter was re­spond­ing to the killings of Jadon Reyes, 21; Jonathan Ar­joon, 28; Kevin King, 30 and 31-year-old Pe­ter Williams. The men died and four oth­ers were in­jured af­ter gun­men opened fire on the group in Gon­za­les.

The vic­tims were rushed to the PoS­GH af­ter be­ing shot. Three died be­fore be­ing treat­ed at the hos­pi­tal. How­ev­er, the gun­men, masked and clad in po­lice tac­ti­cal gear and armed with a high-pow­ered ri­fle, stormed the hos­pi­tal’s grounds to en­sure that known crim­i­nal King was al­so killed.

Dr Row­ley said, “Once again, it is a re­quire­ment that I ex­tend my deep­est con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies of the in­no­cent who would have been felled by the wan­ton, in­dis­crim­i­nate, pur­pose­ful killings, the lat­est of which be­gan in Bel­mont and end­ed on the steps of the pub­lic Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. This mat­ter has en­gaged my at­ten­tion since be­fore mid­night on Sun­day.

“The out­ra­geous, vi­o­lent crim­i­nal be­hav­iour of a grow­ing num­ber of per­sons who dis­play a to­tal dis­re­gard for laws, life, com­mu­ni­ties, and per­sons can on­ly ex­ist amongst us be­cause those who choose these de­struc­tive pur­suits have no re­al trep­i­da­tion over con­se­quences and al­so have lit­tle ex­pec­ta­tion that they will be iden­ti­fied, ar­rest­ed, con­vict­ed, and ul­ti­mate­ly prop­er­ly in­car­cer­at­ed.”

He added, “These are the build­ing blocks of their con­fi­dence and the state’s of­fi­cers and agen­cies must re­lent­less­ly prove them wrong and pur­sue jus­tice at every link of the chain. Ex­cus­es for the sense­less and crim­i­nal blood­let­ting and mol­ly­cod­dling of mur­der­ers and their as­so­ciates on­ly fur­ther strength­en their re­solve to con­tin­ue to trau­ma­tise any and all per­sons in our so­ci­ety.”

He said a greater, more sus­tained re­solve must ex­ist with ef­fort and com­mit­ment to make the ac­tions of these vi­o­lent cit­i­zens not bear the fruits that they in­tend to reap through their de­struc­tive thoughts and ac­tions.

“The ef­fec­tive­ness of polic­ing will be con­sid­er­ably im­proved if cit­i­zens share per­ti­nent in­for­ma­tion through the many anony­mous chan­nels,” the PM added.

Row­ley said the ex­pect­ed swift pro­cess­ing in the court sys­tem, in­stead of man­aged au­to­mat­ic de­lays, will help to close the re­volv­ing doors, oiled by the many rights that are con­stant­ly be­ing abused by peo­ple who show no con­cern for the rights of the ma­jor­i­ty who are con­stant­ly preyed up­on.

He said the Gov­ern­ment was open for dis­cus­sion “with our par­lia­men­tary col­leagues if on­ly they will see it as their job too.”

The Gov­ern­ment will not wa­ver in pro­vid­ing re­sources and sup­port to those whose du­ty it is to fight crime, he added.