Let’s talk! St Michael East rep concerned for Barbados with gun crime Loop Barbados

Black Immigrant Daily News

The latest fatal shooting incident happened in St Michael East last night, but the constituency representative Trevor Prescod is urging that this is not a community problem but a country-wide issue which needs to be stopped.

And he is proposing that critical talks happen fast to bring the bloodshed to a swift end.

I wish I had the opportunity to meet with some parties involved

Speaking to Loop News as a family in Licorish Village, My Lord’s Hill feared the news that they got hours later, that their loved one succumbed to his gunshot injuries despite being rushed to emergency surgery, Prescod said, “This needs to stop!”

“Like all other citizens, I am very concerned. We are all brothers and sisters across the community, not just now, not just in particular St Michael East, but this is a national problem which we all face. And what is important about this, is that we have to do all that we can to see how best we can talk to young men and women across our communities about at least trying to if there are any differences, whatever the issues, we can sit down and reason about this issues without having to take your brother’s life or your sister’s life.

“It is not only painful to the immediate family, and that must be considered, but some of these victims as well as [perpetrators]…all have families and we need to pass on proper values to our offspring and at least we need to take into consideration the kind of pain that the constituencies in which these people live, friends, and relatives and in general, the pain that they have to go through, the agony and to see how people actually find themselves being murdered in the present circumstances, whatever is responsible for it, I personally as parliamentary representative I wish I had the opportunity to meet with some parties involved, that still very much remain with us, and try to see if we can at least find out what it is that is really causing this to be happening across Barbados.

It is a threat to the survival of lots of young men and women

And to allow me and others to try to put something in place as an alternative where we can all enjoy life as human beings in this society.”

Prescod stressed, “Whatever the difficulties are we are reasonable men and women and we can sit down and resolve what the differences are. And I think we can do it.”

But he contended that they we may need to have conversations where nobody will have to face consequences per se. He said, “At the end of the day, we have to get into the heads of the people that participate in this type of exercise… We need to sit down and resolve this.”

Prescod said that he believes that something can be done. “We need to do something together – government, opposition, churches, schools. This is the major public issue that we are facing. It is a threat to the survival of lots of young men and women.”

He said there needs to be talks with various parties in the communities along “with people who understand the problem we have on our hands” like the government, police and judiciary. “This is a calling for us to sit down and see how best we can address this problem. I don’t think we have any miraculous answer to it, but we have to see how can work it out.”

In a matter of weeks, there have been at least five shootings in and around the My Lord’s Hill/The Ivy area, with some being fatal like last night’s incident.

NewsAmericasNow.com