Stabbing incident ‘stuns’ BSTU head

“The level of violence among students in Barbados has past crisis level.”

Those sombre words were echoed by president of the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union (BSTU) Mary Redman moments after news broke that there had been yet another stabbing incident involving schoolchildren.

This evening police reported that two teenaged students from the St Leonard’s Boys School were involved in an altercation which resulted in one of the students being stabbed.

Mary Redman

The injured student was said to have been stabbed in his rib and was receiving treatment at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

The incident comes exactly one week after the horrific stabbing death of 16-year-old Temario Holder at the Frederick Smith Secondary School in St James.

Holder was allegedly stabbed by a 15-year-old student of the school.

It also comes on the heels of emergency meetings called by the BSTU and the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) on Tuesday to address the rising issue of violence in schools.

In an interview with Barbados TODAY this afternoon, Redman was initially at a loss for words but described the development as “unbelievable”.

She said she was in shock that students could exhibit such behaviour just seven days after Holder’s tragic death.

The BSTU president said when she first heard about the stabbing she thought it was “fake news”, but was heartbroken when the news was eventually confirmed.

“The situation reached crisis level when the student was killed last week so I don’t know what level to call this.

“I am at a loss for words because obviously the youth have absolutely no regard for human life. In a situation where a week ago a schoolchild was stabbed by another and killed we are going to have this week somebody actually taking up an implement and going through the same exercise. This is beyond crisis level,” Redman lamented.

The union leader said she would be meeting with officials over the weekend to determine “where we go from here”.

Redman told Barbados TODAY what was especially troubling was the fact that students across the island did not seem to see last week’s murder as a major problem.

She said this was evident after speaking to several of the union’s shop stewards.

“One of my shop stewards was just telling me that the children at her school really don’t see anything wrong. It is as if they have accepted the killing last week as nothing as gruesome and worrisome as we adults are seeing it.

“There is a level of disconnect that is worrisome and that is obviously instrumental now and in action this week based on what happened last week,” Redman insisted.

At the BSTU meeting held at Solidarity House three days ago, several teachers admitted to regularly seeing students at their schools with weapons.

One teacher at a St Michael school disclosed that it had been brought to his attention that there was an “arms dealer” at the school who was supplying other students with weapons.
randybennett@barbadostoday.bb