Gary slams ‘irresponsible parents’

WHILE Police Commissioner Gary Griffith was expected to speak about youth at the Carenage Improvement and Empowerment League/Carenage Youth Club’s breakfast meeting on Sunday, he instead shared some strong words for parents.

He told business leaders, residents and educators at the Carenage Police Youth Club and Homework Centre, Constabulary Street, Carenage, “We don’t have a problem with youths in this country, we have a problem with some of our adults.

“They are irresponsible, they are reckless and they are uncaring. And these are parents. God has given them a gift to have a child, and instead of you using that gift to build that child...these parents have become irresponsible. They are virtually pimping out their children, for want of a better word.”

TT Defence Force’s Colonel Malcolm Nedd and the police inspector Andrew Ramoutar joined Griffith at the head table. Presentations were made by PC Angel Sylvester and the league’s chair Deanna Francis.

Griffith said people were getting into a life of crime in their early twenties, late teens and sometimes even early teens. He told the audience that during a police operation in Carenage on Saturday night, a 14-year-old was held with a gun. He said this was typical of what he was speaking about. The reason, Griffith said, the child had the gun was because he was about to commit a crime.

“Had he drawn that firearm, gone into somewhere and the police shot him, the first thing you would have heard is the irresponsible parents, friends, neighbours rushing to defend their son and say it was the police. The police drew and killed him in cold blood, because having their children involved in crime is making life better for them. More food on the table, more jewellery, better clothes, a car.”

He said the boy’s parents should be ashamed of themselves because they did not care about him and did not care if he “meets his death”.

“All that would happen when he meets his death, is that they would try to defend wrongdoing. They would blame society, police, they would blame everyone else other than looking in the mirror and understand who is the cause of their loved one being killed.”

He said TT needed adults who are “stepping up to the plate”. He encouraged people if they really cared and loved their “husband, son, nephew” then they needed to advise them “that this is the wrong way”.

This, he added, would play “a very big part” toward the attrition rate of TT “losing good young men to a life of crime”.

He commended the event’s organisers for being there on a Sunday morning, telling them that sacrifice was no longer the norm for adults in TT. He hailed them as role models in the Carenage community.

He said in many locations when young people are killed by police, “you will always see a lady with a towel wrapped around her screaming ‘he didn’t do nothing, leave him alone.’ Or persons videotaping because they always know what happens...” Griffith said, in a recent incident in which a police officer shot two people, killing one, the family, relatives and friends of the dead man were dishonest to the media.

He said these people have bionic eyes “they always know exactly what happens when the police shoots, but when the criminals shoot they never see anything”.

This, he said, cannot continue.

“Yes we have police youth clubs, but I believe we need police parent clubs for adults to try to train them.”

He asked the organisers to start speaking to the parents too.

Griffith said the police service was doing its part and it is working towards the implementation of a “Street Talk” initiative where the police go by to street corners, bars an6d “everywhere” to try to assist and guide people.