Principal of the Frederick Smith Secondary Stephen Jackman has confirmed that the school is investigating a video circulating on social media which appears to show several of its students attempting to vandalise a bus shelter at Holetown, St James.
Jackman told Barbados TODAY that the school is aware of the incident and a meeting has been scheduled with the students involved and their parents to discuss the matter.
Meanwhile, the students’ behaviour has been condemned by the supplier of the structure.
Managing Director of Adopt-a-Stop, Barney Gibbs, issued a press release highlighting the matter and said the shelter has been removed from the location for repairs and has been replaced by a bench bearing the text “If you brek it up, we tek it up: Vandalism hurts everyone”.
He said the bench was put in place to ensure users are not deprived of seating during the repair period and the message seeks to give some insight into the reason for the substitution.
“The public might interpret the removal as a punitive move, but in fact we have a responsibility to take the shelter back to the workshop for inspection and any necessary repair. A shelter will go back there, but it takes a little time to really run through the shelter and do any necessary repairs.
“We will try to keep it off the road for a minimum of time. But we do have a responsibility to bring it in and check it even if it is just for a week or two. We are always cognisant that we don’t want to inconvenience legitimate users,” Gibbs told Barbados TODAY.
During the almost two-minute long video, a group of school boys could be seen standing on the bench, some even sitting on the back of the seat, shaking and rocking the structure. As the shelter shook from left to right, the students jumped on and off the bench.
At one point, a female student also from the Trents, St James school, who appeared to be passing by while the students were engaging in the reckless behaviour, challe nged the unruly behaviour.
Since the video hit social media, members of the public cried shame on the students’ actions, with many proposing that those involved in the incident should be punished for their actions.
Gibbs said that abuse of the robustly-built bus shelters is not the norm in Barbados as locals and visitors to the island generally respect and appreciate the structures.
“I would say that this type of behaviour is fairly rare, an isolated event. But we still like to deal with it decisively in terms of bringing the shelter in and making sure it is in the shape it should be in,” he stressed.
He extended gratitude to members of the public for their continued scrutiny of the shelters, including the person who captured the recent incident on video.
“I want to thank people for the continued surveillance and scrutiny of the bus shelters,” he said. (AH)
