ALMOST EVERY EVENING, Constant and Glebe Land in St George and surrounding areas become war zones.
Rival schoolchildren from the St George Secondary School have taken to throwing stones and bottles at each other after school ends and have even been seen brandishing knives and cutlasses.
The unruly and dangerous behaviour has the upset and frightened residents up in arms. It has got to the point where the police have become involved and have begun patrols.
Gus Browne runs the CellConnect store close to the school gates. He recounted stories of stones hitting his business and passing vehicles, as he complained about the indiscipline.
“One of the guys who [was] working with me previously had an incident where the children were throwing bottles and rocks and damaged his car. They does be fighting in the streets and throwing rocks and hitting people vehicles as they drive past. I don’t understand what kind of discipline they could be teaching in there. It should be a military school,” he said.
Browne said, in addition to fighting amongst themselves, some students also terrorized the smaller primary school students passing by, stealing their money and belongings.
“We have a lot of issues and I blame the parents too. I feel discipline starts from home, if there is none there, then there can’t be any outside either,” he said.
Browne said his customers now tended to frequent his business either before or after the children were released.
Hubert Dorville said he had to pay to get his water metre repaired after it was damaged by a rock during one of the now frequent incidents. He said he took his case to the school’s principal but the response was not to his satisfaction.
“She told me she would call their parents as my daughter knows them but up to now I ain’t hear nothing yet,” he said.
His daughter Stanshia said trouble began around 3 p.m. when the factions would gather.
Charging that the students often had weapons, she told the SATURDAY?SUN: “They say they are having war games between Oistins and Bridgetown and somebody have to die.”
This was repeated by many of the people spoken to who said children from Oistins, Christ Church, and The City in St Michael attending St George Secondary were to blame for the problem.
The situation has reached the point where Kim Brathwaite is considering a petition to present to the police and the school. She said her 18-year-old son got drawn in and ended up being arrested.
“He was coming home when he got caught in the crossfire, so when he fought back the police charged him for disrupting the peace.
“If you could see the rocks in my backyard and the powder marks in the road because of this; we want to have a petition signed to get peace around here; we won’t let them come and rule we,” she said.
However, when contacted, principal Catherine Jordan said there was nothing going on anymore as the police were on the case.
“Anybody who creates a disturbance in the street is a matter for the police and we do a lot of work with the Boarded Hall Police Station, so if they want my help, I will cooperate. If there are children throwing stones and I am told about it, then I will tell them to call the police as I have no jurisdiction in the street, but if there was a problem before there is none now as I have not heard anything,” she said.
A senior officer at the Boarded Hall station, who declined identification, verified the incidents but said it was not isolated to St George Secondary.
“It is not only there, it is happening across the landscape of the country. However, we do have reports of an issue at the St George Secondary School and we had a meeting with the principal, the offenders and their parents,” he said, adding that no charges had been laid “at this time”.
The officer said lawmen regularly patrolled the area before school came to a close. He urged parents to take a greater role in their children’s lives.
“. . . I want to appeal to parents to be more in control of their children’s behaviour before it gets out of hand and becomes a cause for concern for the police,” he said.
•carlosatwell@nationnews.com