A high school student was stabbed and killed yesterday and another was wounded in a separate incident that had authorities expressing renewed concerns over school violence.
Orlander Williamson, a 15-year-old student of C. V. Bethel, became the countryﾴs 13th murder victim for the year after another teenager stabbed him to death, according to police.
Police reported that Williamson was stabbed in the left chest while walking along Victoria Boulevard, off East Street South around 3:25 pm.
The youngster and another 15-year-old male student were reportedly involved in a fight when the deadly wound was inflicted.
Police believe the feud actually started between the two boys on Monday after school hours.
Police Chief Superintendent Hulan Hanna said that the victim was rushed to the hospital, but physicians pronounced him dead on arrival.
Police were last night holding the 11th grader believed to be responsible for the stabbing death of the C. V. Bethel student.
Earlier on Tuesday, two Government High School students were involved in an altercation resulting in a 12th grader being stabbed in the chest by an 11th grader, police said.
The two reportedly had also been feuding.
Police also reported that shortly after the Government High stabbing incident occurred another 12th grader assaulted another 11th grade student with a cement block.
Police reported that the student slammed the block into the other studentﾴs head.
Students at the school described the scene as gruesome and reported that they had to run for cover.
Both of the students had to be carried away by ambulance, according to reports.
The incidents left police appealing to parents to do more to help prevent violence in schools.
“You need to discourage them and if they refuse to comply then you need to alert law enforcement so that we could deal with these situations before they become as tragic as this one was this afternoon,” said Superintendent Hanna, referring specifically to the C. V. Bethel incident.
He appealed to parents to closely watch their childrenﾴs activities to ensure that they are not arming themselves with harmful objects such as cutlasses and knives.
“At this juncture I wish to appeal to parents of boys in particular to observe the activity and the behavior of their sons,” Superintendent Hanna said.
“Some months ago we concluded a very successful anti-knife campaign where we saw a reduction in the amount of knives being used by young people and at the same time, we actually placed a lot of young men before the courts for the use of knives. Unfortunately, we see again an escalation with the use of knives by young people.”
Superintendent Hanna also appealed to persons in the wider community like churches to encourage young men to become involved in positive activities.
“Once this happens we will be able to control the carnage that we see on the streets in the community,” he said.
On Tuesday, President of The Bahamas Union of Teachers Kingsley Black expressed outrage over school violence.
“It is not just a little ﾑletﾴs fix security issue; letﾴs fix the fence issueﾴ it is the whole mix of programmes and arrangements which make up the education system which either inspire children to pursue learning as the dominant and most important activity in the school as opposed to getting engaged in all of the other activity that tend to render them dysfunctional as students,” Mr. Black said.
He suggested that one of the means of combating this vice is to implement conflict resolution classes to teach the students how to better deal with conflicts.
“The most vexing problem in high schools today is that of discipline and violence,” Mr. Black said. “Over the years, this problem has escalated to the point where police presence is needed in some schools in order to maintain peace.”
Bianca Symonette, The Bahama Journal
