SLEEPLESS NIGHTS
for Kingston’s homeless following attacks
Alicia Morris, who is one of the many homeless people living on the streets in downtown Kingston, has been unable to sleep.
The 42-year-old said she doesn’t want to be caught off-guard due to violent attacks that have sent the nation’s nomads into deep fear, the latest occurring last Sunday.
“Mi always hear of it enuh (attacks on homeless people). People a throw stone off a homeless people but it never come as real like now. I rest, but I don’t sleep. Some people rest right through the day and stay up at nights because dem no wah fi a sleep if sup’n fi happen again,” Morris said.
Nine homeless persons have either been killed or hospitalised due to violent attacks since the start of the year. In one of the attacks, a 60-year-old man was hospitalised following a brutal encounter where a block was reportedly dropped on his head while he slept.
I FEAR FOR MY FRIENDS
“I don’t like it, I don’t like it. The first time I hear it I was wondering what is happening. I don’t want to hear anymore. I don’t fear for myself as how I fear for my friends, the ones who are in a worse situation than me. Nobody understand how it happens, maybe if they understand how it happens they can stop it,” Morris added.
Her sentiments were echoed by Shawn Ricketts, 26, who told THE STAR of a horrific experience he had when he was young.
“Mi see one man kill one mad man one time when mi a likkle bwoy. Mad man bounce up ina him and him food drop, so him just turn round and tek out a knife and start stab him up,” he said of the incident that took place in Kingston. Ricketts also admitted that he has become fearful since the attacks on some of his peers.
“It shake mi still but a long time dem a kill homeless people, from mi a likkle pickney mi see people a throw big stone pon mad man. A just nowadays dem just a talk bout homeless people. As simple as it sound a long time dis a gwan. Is like something else is behind it,” he said.
According to the head of the police’s Corporate Communications Unit, Senior Superintendent Stephanie Lindsay, cops are still probing what appears to be a coordinated attack. She also confirmed that a man who was previously questioned for the first spate of attacks in January, is back in custody.
“They (investigators) are going through and checking through things. The individual is still in custody. Nothing major has changed, the person has not been charged either,” she said.
Despite various officials, including Prime Minister Andrew Holness, condemning the attacks, Public Defender Arlene Harrison Henry has urged the authorities and wider society to do more for the homeless, especially as it relates to reintegrating them into society.
“That has to be the ultimate end. So the aim has to be to provide interim help, and to provide shelters where if something happens you can go to it. There is to be a structure to assess persons, their level of literacy, competence, skills etc, and the ultimate aim is to try for reintegration,” she said.
There are an estimated 2,000 homeless people in Jamaica, with approximately 500 roaming the capital’s downtown region.