St. James school mourns murder of two students in Salt Spring attack

 

It was a somber mood Tuesday morning as political representatives and parents joined teachers and students at Chetwood Memorial Primary School in Montego Bay, St. James to mourn the killing of seven-year-old Justin Perry and nine-year-old Nahcoliva Smith.

 

The two boys were fatally shot in a taxi Monday evening in Salt Spring, St. James.

 

Stacy-Ann Hutchinson's daughter is a classmate of one of the boys.

 

She told Radio Jamaica News that this is a painful time for her and other parents. 

 

"When I came and I saw the whole class in tears and she was frightened, she was like, 'Mommy, what's up? What's happening?' And one student said it is Nahcoliv. And I had to let it go. I couldn't hold it back. I mean Nahcoliv, that little boy... every evening when I come to school for my daughter, he would be the first one to say, 'Desmay's Mommy, Desmay's around there. Here's her bag' and he would pick up her bag and he would take it to the vehicle. He was always jovial, he was always helpful," she remembered. 

 

Sean Pierre Louis, a teacher at the institution, said words could not describe how the school body was feeling. He urged Jamaicans to pray.  

 

"Pray for the Jamaican family because crime and violence has no place in Jamaica. Teachers are affected, children are affected," he lamented. 

 

He said other children at the school had just exited the same taxi that was shot up, bemoaning that "it could be any one of them". 

 

"So these children, I don't know how they are going to cope, but we have to work with them to cope through all of this."

 

Radio Jamaica News has been informed that one of the boys is the son of the acting principal of Bethel Town Primary School.

 

 

In the meantime, President of the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA) Leighton Johnson has described the killing of the students as another dark day in the history of Jamaica.

 

In an interview with Radio Jamaica News, Mr. Johnson lamented that adults have failed to prove their ability to care for the young and the vulnerable. 

 

"As Jamaicans, we can no longer sit by and allow these kinds of atrocities to continue.... We cannot become numb or immune to this kind of senseless killing. And these are acts that are being perpetrated by adults against our young people. Our adults again have failed to demonstrate good sense in dealing with their conflicts, amicably. We have become a very violent society. And unfortunately, this is resulting in the death of our young and our vulnerable," he said.