The silence which killed a bandit

Aug 30, 2017 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The 24-year-old man who was shot and killed yesterday after he allegedly attempted to rob a female businesswoman was very popular. His Facebook profile had over nine hundred ‘friends.’
Those friends would have had access to the posts which he made on his page. The posts go a few years back. In one post a pile of $1000 bills are photographed.
He dodges the question of ownership, but that image is pasted many times on his page. There is also an image of a bottle of Hennessy and an AK 47 rifle. That alone should have raised red flags among his 900 Facebook ‘friends’.
In another photograph, there is a picture of a handgun with an ammunition magazine. All of this would have been visible to his “friends”. It was obvious that this man was going down the wrong path. Yet no one seemed to have tried to get in touch with the police.
The young man was also seen sporting a gold chain with what appears to be a diamond pendant. For a then prison warder enjoying a small salary to be bedecked in such clothing should have raised red flags.
It is sad that he lost his life. He was young and his life had hardly begun. But he was an adult and he made the choice of such a life, and from the comments and posts that he made on social media, it is clear that he enjoyed whatever he was doing.
The young man who was killed was said to be warder. Imagine having a bandit watching other bandits. The Guyana Prison Service should investigate the procedures which were used to employ him. It should investigate the background checks which were conducted. His death, at such a young age, should be a lesson for all young men in the country. Stay along the straight and narrow path. Do not get involved in crime! You are not proving anything to anybody, once the only way in which you can make money is by criminal means.
That young man had no reason to be trying to rob that businesswoman.
Poverty is no reason for crime. Generations of Guyanese have grown up dirt poor and not resorted to crime. There was a time when the shame of being branded a criminal was enough to force persons to stay away from crime.
These days criminals are folk heroes. There are some women who even like to boast about their man being a thief or bandit. From all reports, there were women who were willing to associate with hardened and ruthless criminals. Blackie London, a notorious criminal, was actually in the presence of a woman who left home with her Bible, when the lawmen cornered him in a hotel in Eccles.
It is greed, not poverty, which is behind the large numbers of our young people who are resorting to crime. There has been a breakdown in values in our society. The value of greed is now displacing honesty as a societal value.
The young people of Guyana are under threat. It is true that many of them cannot find jobs. But it is equally true that many of them also do not want to work. It is also true that quite a few of them do not have employable skills.
But this has always been the case. Nothing has changed, except that being a bandit now is becoming a status symbol. Long ago, when a bandit was killed, even close members of the family were ashamed to be seen at that persons’ funeral. These days, when bandits are killed, the funerals are turned into a parade.
It boils down to our values. Poverty does not push people into crime. It is the legitimizing of criminality which is encouraging our young people to go astray.
That young man who was killed yesterday, met his end because those who should have done something about his wicked ways, did not do enough. They let him down just as much as he let himself down.