Organ-donor remarks stem murders

WAKE UP WORDS: Floris Hodge-Griffith called on gangsters to donate organs.
WAKE UP WORDS: Floris Hodge-Griffith called on gangsters to donate organs.

A recent call for gangsters to become organ donors if they intend to die in gang war may have led to zero killings last weekend, said Port of Spain Division Senior Supt Floris Hodge-Griffith. Newsday asked if her remarks at a police town meeting at Mango Rose, Piccadilly Street, East Port of Spain last Friday had made any impact.

She had said while patients are desperately seeking the donation of bodily organs and pints of blood, these are wasting away in the corpses of dead gangsters lying in mortuaries. Hodge-Griffith said the police had expected murders but she was glad none had occurred, even as she said she had been told by mothers she had met in the Port of Spain area that her graphic remarks had made a big impact. “The weekend was crime-free and murder free, so I’m not sure if the impact was felt that week. We had expected trauma but it never materialised.”

Asked if she had got any direct feedback on her statement, she said, “I didn’t get verbal feedback from gangsters themselves, but the parents, the people of the area said ‘yes, it was a good message’. They felt it had a big impact.”

Hodge-Griffith said one must find a way to reach people, by finding their particular level.

She said she tries to go into certain areas to talk one-on-one with residents, trying several strategies to reach out to people to curb the murder rate. “I don’t call them youths but ‘contributors to society’ because they have a role to play, not just to live and die for no good reason.”

Hodge-Griffith lamented the failure of some police initiatives as shown by the high murder rate, but hoped for better. “We believe that if we could reach to the minds of these people however we could, by talking one on one, walking with them, talking with them, reasoning with them by direct communication.” Asked if the police have a tough task coping with the end-result of family and social breakdown, she replied yes. “Every day it keeps on changing and we have to adapt and move with the change. Our job is to maintain peace among people and allay the fears of citizens by being visible so people would feel comfortable coming out and feeling our constant presence.”

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