Former Police Commissioner Ellison Greenslade.
By AVA TURNQUEST
Tribune Chief Reporter
aturnquest@tribunemedia.net
POLICE Commissioner Ellison Greenslade pushed back on Friday against claims that Thursday's stabbing incident at Government High School was linked to gang-related activity, insisting that the students involved were "wannabes".
Mr Greenslade maintained that the incident, which left a teenage boy in serious condition at hospital and injured two others, evidenced the country-wide struggle with healthy conflict resolution. He noted that the altercation was predicated by two groups shouting gang slogans at each other but insisted that it was immature and not tied to actual gang activity.
He provided an update on the matter on the sidelines of a ceremony to mark the completion of two joint-training courses coordinated with the United States Embassy and Jamaica's Constabulary Force.
"The most important update is no loss of life," he said, "despite lots of things being said yesterday due to excellent work by people who responded…the child most seriously injured is stable and is going to be okay.
"Unfortunately all this is, is a reflection of what we have always said. People that do not know how to resolve conflicts, young people, middle-aged, and old. Here we have children in our schools that know each other very well, and if they had been allowed, possibly would have killed each other and that is very sad.
Mr Greenslade said: "Yes, it stemmed over silly gang slogans, gang talk, someone screams out some silly name of a gang, the opposing side screams another name, and then you have a big fisticuff."
He added: "Just unruly, wannabes little kids, with younger kids it's fashionable to say crazy stuff.”
Mr Greenslade called the subsequent flood of erroneous reports on social media disappointing, and stressed that the incident was localised to GHS.
"We are satisfied that teachers, students, guidance counsellors, did everything correctly. We've had assessments post the incident and I'm hoping to get an update soon that will point clearly to who those perpetrators were and I'm not going to ignore what they did."
Mr Greenslade said: "I don't want to mislead the Bahamian public, measures have always been in the school. We have been proactive for years now in working very closely with the Director of Education, the Bahamas Union of Teachers, guidance counselors and principals on a very intimate level.
"In this instance there was an officer on the premises who was well known, has good authority, and assisted, but this spontaneous outburst, this anger between these young people, got out of control very quickly.
He added: "So no need for alarm and this nonsense of school's being overtaken is absolute rubbish. I think we're going to be fine."
Comments
viewersmatters 7 years, 3 months ago
Sad and most shameful thing is that every time someone is killed, shot, stab or beaten the first thing to always be said is that the actions was due to gang related but what many isn't coming to reality with and principle is that most of these violence and crimes are being done with ILLEGAL FIRE ARMS AND OTHER ILLEGAL SUBSTANCE, the Bahamas does create or produce drugs and guns. The most threatening thing is knowing that there are men and women holding these killing machine and have no regards for human life, among murders on a daily basics people both Bahamians and tourists are being robbed and assault with these weapons by these people who doesn't has a single care in the world for human life. So please let's stopped making excuses for crime blaming it on gang related because it's way beyond that crime are being made by individuals who doesn't respect the laws or authorities nor respect for others live it's time to get rid of crime and stop giving these criminal the spotlight time to take back our nation.
viewersmatters 7 years, 3 months ago
Sad and most shameful thing is that every time someone is killed, shot, stab or beaten the first thing to always be said is that the actions was due to gang related but what many isn't coming to reality with and principle is that most of these violence and crimes are being done with ILLEGAL FIRE ARMS AND OTHER ILLEGAL SUBSTANCE, the Bahamas doesn't create or produce drugs and guns. The most threatening thing is knowing that there are men and women holding these killing machine and have no regards for human life, among murders on a daily basics people both Bahamians and tourists are being robbed and assault with these weapons by these people who doesn't has a single care in the world for human life. So please let's stopped making excuses for crime blaming it on gang related because it's way beyond that crime are being made by individuals who doesn't respect the laws or authorities nor respect for others live it's time to get rid of crime and stop giving these criminal the spotlight time to take back our nation.
ThisIsOurs 7 years, 3 months ago
I like the commissioner but this is a case of putting your head in the sand
"the altercation was predicated by two groups shouting gang slogans at each other but insisted that it was immature and not tied to actual gang activity."
Uhmmm??? If you don't call it what it us you can't fix it. No doubt It was silly, but quite a number of gang related brawls are caused by silly things. Someone wearing the wrong colour, someone wearing the wrong basketball jersey, someone driving through the wrong street, someone talking to the wrong woman, someone disrespecting someone else, or someone calling our their gang slogan. How about someone looking at you funny? can't get much sillier than that.
Call this what it is. I'm sure the teachers all know what it is, the students know what it is. It's a disservice to the parents to call it anything else
John 7 years, 3 months ago
When you have a 16 y/o dressed as an assassin in the process of committing a very serious crime and he is gunned down and killed in the dark of the night. Yet when you have another student his same age attacked by another gang of students chanting gang slogans the commissioner calls them silly wannabes and dismisses the talks about gangs taking over the schools as "absolute rubbish." Time for the commissioner to retire and Take the minister of national security and his side kick with him.
paul_vincent_zecchino 7 years, 3 months ago
Well, for wannabes, they seem to be practiced, well schooled, cunning, and lethal, don't they?
John 7 years, 3 months ago
Schools have always been the recruiting grounds for gangs
TalRussell 7 years, 3 months ago
Comrades! The Commish's caution for misclarification of our students as wannabe gang members is in effect an intelligent attempt to avoid passing a sentence reserved for pubic school students that would never be publicly pronounced on students attending private schools.
We can keep building private schools and gated communities to avoid where we will reside and where we will send-off our children to be educated... But 95% of parents will never have no such opportunities to make on those two socially dividing issues.
Comrades! How "few" of our citizen fall even into the middle-class of Bahamaland's, mostly poor society?
ohdrap4 7 years, 3 months ago
ah, the "Pubic" school again, where they fail to teach family life and planning.
Let's close down GHS and send all those students to boarding school in switzerland with the VAT money.
TalRussell 7 years, 3 months ago
Comrade Ohdrap4, Perhaps you think the Commish is wrong in his seeing things few of us will ever see happening to our youth.... Why the risks are much too great to be placing negative labels on our school children. Labels that can become lifelong anchors of impossibilities to shake-off in adulthood.
Let's start by on Monday morning the PLP cabinet setting an example for all income and colour classes society - with ordering the immediate removal of all gates from the grounds GHS.
ohdrap4 7 years, 3 months ago
Careful what you wish for.
This will the Collins Wall 2.0, just in time for election.
John 7 years, 3 months ago
It has been observed that many of the guns found on the streets are fairly new, and many are high powered weapons, yes even AK-47 assault rifles. The young men (and boys) using these weapons to commit crimes barely travel and have little or no access to channels that would allow them to smuggle weapons. So the million dollar question (again) is who is smuggling weapons into the country in a manner to make them so available and so affordable. Wasn't there suppose to be a gun-tracking unit on the police force to trace weapons used in crimes and to connect them to any other crime they may have been used in?
Alex_Charles 7 years, 3 months ago
all bought from Florida, the State with some of the slackest gun control laws. You can literally buy a gun on craigslist from a private owner without a permit, bill of sale or background check.
So guns flood into the Bahamas
concernedcitizen 7 years, 3 months ago
When we used to run the alcohol during prohibition , or the drugs in the eighties one of the refrain was , we wouldn,t do it if the Americans did not want it ..We want the guns and its us bringing them in,,
quietone 7 years, 3 months ago
John, I think you have made some good points. I have great respect for our commissioner of police but he seems to be a bit off. I will never forget what a school teacher told me about 8 years ago, ie, that soon there will have to be an armed police present at every class while a teacher is teaching. This statement came from a highly educated teacher who is also very intelligent, and he has been teaching at about 3 of these so-called government high schools for about 20 years before he retired. I tend to believe him.
TalRussell 7 years, 3 months ago
by TalRussell
islandgold 7 years, 3 months ago
TalRussell, great perspective on the mislabelling of children in the public sector. It is shameful what is allowed to be said and done to children in the government schools. Quietone, I am going to disagree with the negatively, biased information that was handed down to you by a retired teacher. I served as a teacher for four years (3 years were at GHS). When I first started teaching, I was 21 years old, female, 124 lbs and I looked no more than 17 years old. I never once needed police assistance to teach my students. As adults, we cannot be afraid of children or classify them as monsters, else we will mistreat them and break their spirits. I have seen many kids mistreated by teachers out of fear, which causes rebellion or reclusion - neither of which is good. And, I've also seen a lot of older teachers afraid to lay down the law with children. My approach, was that I treated my students with love and respect, something they don't normally get from adults. And yes, there were a few occasions that I had to discipline, but this too was done with love.
John 7 years, 3 months ago
Ezekiel 7:23 "make the chain for the city is full of violence, and the land is full of bloody crimes ."
John 7 years, 3 months ago
"By swearing and lying and killing and stealing and committing adultry blood touches blood. ". Bloodshed shall follow bloodshed. When one gets killed another gets killed in retaliation, then another and another... are we there yet. If my people who are called by my name shall do what?? Shall do what? What should they do? Humble themselves And pray. And what else? And then and only then shall I hear from heaven and heal their land
John 7 years, 3 months ago
Blood touchet bloodshed so slaughters are multiplied. The ending of one (murder) is the beginning of another. Eye for a eye tooth for a tooth.
John 7 years, 3 months ago
Hosea 4:1-3 read
John 7 years, 3 months ago
And they lying and the stealing and they committing adultry ... elections soon come.. and to y'all who have blood on your hands (over 1000 murdered in ten years) . The blood is on your hands, now say amen!
banker 7 years, 3 months ago
Who is the dude beside the Commish? The last time that I saw a face like that, I fed it a banana.
TalRussell 7 years, 3 months ago
Comrade Banker, I had expected you walk a much higher ground. The next time you have anything mean to say, before you post - why not come sit down next to me at the edge Izmirlian's 'dock' for a "I worry about you" - two sets feet dangling from the 'dock.' Two blogging Comrades talking about whatever you want talk about . How about at sundown this coming Tuesday?
banker 7 years, 3 months ago
I would, and I probably would enjoy it. But I took the pledge at the lodge. It was the Soar-Like-An-Eagle Patriots Lodge. It was a 12 step programme to stay away from crabs (or was that crabbies -- I think that I heard crabs right). Not only must I refrain from consorting and intercourse with PLP's, but should I visit a hospital and if a PLP is on life support, my pledge compels me to unplug the machine so that I can charge my phone and text my lodge brothers. So mote it be. Abracadabra and all of that lodge stuff.
TalRussell 7 years, 3 months ago
Listen, Comrade Banker, not being one to be quick shake-off a fellow Comrade in need who just might be worth saving - why not talk with your fellow lodge Comrade brothers - asking them to take into account that our meeting of minds at dock's edge, could be considered exceptional circumstances that just might teach you to "soar like an eagle" on these hereto Tribune blog pages.
Comrade Banker, come let us labour our minds together at edge Izmirlian's 'dock' cause for you this might turn into a spread your bloggers wings coming to Jesus moment?
banker 7 years, 3 months ago
Nahhh ... Tuesdays is out. It is Steam Mutton dinner night at Checkers. And da soup is Bean 'n dumpling. The other nights its peas 'n dumpling and I don't like peas 'cept in peas 'n rice with lots of rice and not many peas and not a lot of erl in da peas 'n rice.
sheeprunner12 7 years, 3 months ago
The COP needs to meet with the two Education Unions to see if his perspective is truly correct
TalRussell 7 years, 3 months ago
Comrade Sheeprunner12, if the Commish were to live by the strict motto: Grab anyone who looks/acts like a gang member - his uniformed policeman's would have grab the most powerful of Bahamland's gang members - the governing and opposition politicians, who not only have their own club to meet but wear their gang's colors when they meet upstairs in their own Club House leased for up four years at expense taxpayers -- the People's Honourable House of Assembly.
In fact, his uniformed officers does already protect the MP's in the HOA. His plainclothes policeman's does chauffeur some them around and in taxpayers automobiles.
You go figure - hey - cause some them just like the gangs. are known be packing "loaded heat".
MonkeeDoo 7 years, 3 months ago
Tal: you does drink hard liquor eh ? All day ? Chut !
Porcupine 7 years, 3 months ago
Greenslade, "......with younger kids, it's fashionable to say crazy stuff." Which of all Bahamian politicians, are young? Don't every one of them say crazy stuff?
John 7 years, 3 months ago
Gang violence and warfare, The drug culture including the smuggling, sale and use of illegal drugs, break down in the family, including too many mothers with 'baby daddies instead of real fathers and vice versa, the erosion of moral values in society itself, including corruption or the perception of it,the exclusion of many from the benefits their citizenship or residency status affords them, the unequal sharing of the tax burden, while some carry a lot others bare none and lack for the reverence and respect of God both as individuals and as a nation all needs to be fixed.
Greentea 7 years, 3 months ago
Sorry commish. I don't believe it. Just check the facebook pages of all of those GHS students and former students who sent condolences on Bahamas News Ma Bey to the 16 year old currently in the arms of Jesus. It is fascinating how many reference they make to the One Order Gang or are the children of murdered men.
Well_mudda_take_sic 7 years, 3 months ago
Sadly there are well-known Bahamians taking advantage of this fear of crime situation to unjustly enrich their friends and family members seeking to derive great profits from providing neighbourhood security services in areas where they themselves own property or are involved in property development activities. More often than not, opening up or exposing a neighbourhood to such security services results in the opposite effect desired because the security providers themselves (or their family members or close friends), armed with additional information gathered about the neighbourhood's residents, begin to prey on the very people they are supposed to be protecting in an effort to justify their existence and/or make "good easy money" on the side by burglaries and home invasions that would not have otherwise been experienced by the neighbourhood's residents, especially those residents who refuse to ante up the coercive monthly payments demanded of the security service providers. Most Bahamians would be wise to educate themselves on what happened to residents of Blair Estates and many other similar neighbourhoods whose fears were preyed upon by very opportunistic security service providers! There is really no substitute today for neighbours looking out for each other and having a licensed firearm that they know how (and are not afraid) to use when absolutely necessary.
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