Spike in homicides ‘entirely unacceptable’ – PM

The spate of homicides over the last weekend is “entirely unacceptable,” according to Prime Minister, Dr Ralph Gonsalves.

Gonsalves, who is also this country’s Minister of National Security, expressed his concern about the situation as he spoke on NBC Radio on Wednesday, May 4.
St Vincent and the Grenadines recorded four homicides last weekend, in which one woman and three men were killed.

Those who died are Vandyke Mayers, 42 and Kishroy Duke 22 of Choppins, Luann Roberts 41 of Harmony Hall, and Keon Phillips 35 of Kingstown Park/Greiggs.

Mayers and Duke were shot on Friday, April 29, following a football match at the Calliaqua Playing Field.

Mayers was pronounced dead at the scene, while Duke died at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital on Saturday, April 30.

The body of Luann Roberts, a former counsellor at the Family Court, was found in a vehicle at Buccament, around 9.15 a.m on Sunday May 1.

On Monday May 2, the body of Keon Phillips was found in Kingstown Park.

Phillips’ body was slumped on a speaker box and was reportedly bleeding from a head injury.

“This situation of people not controlling themselves and killing people, has to be spoken out against.”

“It is entirely unacceptable.”

“I can’t wrap my head around the reports that I have received in Choppins, about two young men getting killed from a dispute arising on a football field,” the prime minister lamented.

Gonsalves said he does not know how it is that “somebody can lack the restraint, to do such an act.”

The four recent homicides pushed the number of homicides so far for the year, to 14.

The prime minister said that this is painful.

“A country is about its people, its about its government, its about its land and its seas, but it is about its people,” Gonsalves stressed.

He added that we all have an “individual responsibility, in relation to certain matters.”

“A field of play of football, cricket or basketball… is to engender comity and friendship among the people who are playing, young people who are involved.”

Concerning the other two homicide cases on the weekend, Gonsalves said, “they have no rhyme or reason to them.

“No homicide is ever something which is pleasant.

“The death of every single person diminishes each of us, because it’s a life,” the minister of National Security stated.

Gonsalves said there are some homicides which are “utterly senseless.”

“What gets into the mind of a person, to do this sort of a thing?” the prime minister questioned.

He said that he cannot pretend “that these things didn’t happen over the weekend, when he spoke on the radio on Wednesday.