Lawless Lynch

The continued lawlessness among the nation’s youth must not be tolerated!

This was declared today by Bridgetown Magistrate Douglas Frederick, as he remanded an 18-year-old man who endangered the lives of scores of passengers aboard a bus, when he threw a rock through its window.

On Wednesday afternoon, minibus B40 was on route to Bridgetown from Speightstown when it stopped along Black Rock Main Road, St Michael, in the area of Kentucky to pick up school children.

Prosecutor Sergeant St Clair Phillips told the District ‘A’ Magistrates Court that the driver was about to move off when he heard a crash. He went to investigate and discovered the glass on the right of the bus was shattered. Additionally, a 14-year-old girl was wounded on the right side of her body, an 11-year-old girl received lacerations to her right hand and foot and a 17-year-old female’s shoulder was swollen.

They were taken for medical attention, treated and released while the minibus driver reported the matter.

The accused, Jadon Junior Lynch, of Connell Road, Free Hill, St Michael, was subsequently detained and admitted to police that he “wanted to burst that boy Chong’s face but the rock went through the bus”.

Speaking to the magistrate from the dock this morning the teenager who pleaded guilty to four charges, further admitted that he was neither working nor in school.

“You are just doing lawlessness!” Frederick told the teen to which he replied: “I am sorry for what happened”.

The apology fell on deaf ears after Lynch explained that he was having some problems with Chong and “just lost it” that day.

“Sorry? You are just doing a lot of lawlessness, that’s what you are doing. Not going to school, not working, you are just pelting out rocks to injure innocent people.

“You almost kill these people!” the magistrate further stated, before he called Lynch’s mother to the stand telling her “he has one foot in jail even if he is a first-timer. He started at the top of the scale”.

On questioning the teen further, it was revealed that Lynch left school without a certificate and was using marijuana.

“I keep talking to him, talking to him, telling him to keep off the road,” the mother told the court.

She then told the magistrate “do what you have to do,” after he informed her that her son would be remanded.

“This is a foolish act, it could have cost somebody [their] life. You know the minibus got people that innocent in it, just there sitting down. I could have been sitting in that bus or you, but he has no regard for them and this is how serious this is. You cannot do that because innocent bystanders will get hurt. I don’t know what he and Chong have against one another, I do not know . . . [but] that is how the shootings start and how the killings start and innocent people lose their lives,” the irate magistrate contended.

“I keep telling him that,” the boy’s mother admitted.

Frederick then responded: “You kept telling him so he ain’t listening, so he going to feel today”.

He then ordered a presentencing report into the teen’s life and remanded him to Dodds until April 12.