‘It could have been my child’
Parents brought to tears by deadly stabbing of female student
PARENTS of Kingston Technical High School students shared on Friday how heavily burdened and worried they became when they learned of Thursday’s stabbing death of grade 11 student Michion Campbell.
Campbell was stabbed with a ratchet knife at her school by another grade 11 female student during a confrontation.
On Friday at the school, some parents were brought to tears.
“Mi feel cut up. Mi nuh sleep the night of the incident; I found all sorts of things to do to keep me up. Every minute mi go look pon my daughter pon di bed. I made sure to carry her to school myself this morning,” one mother told the Jamaica Observer as she started to cry.
“They need to get some police stationed at the school. Look at the goosebumps on my skin. A coulda my pickney. How you must take somebody’s life like that? It touch mi heart bad. When I heard of it, I could not do my work properly. I was trembling because mi remember seh mi have a daughter at the school,” she added.
Another mother also cried as she reflected on the tragedy. She said that she felt like transferring her daughter to a different school.
“I feel like I would transfer her based on the incident, mi a tell you the truth. A long time mi nuh come from work and nuh bathe. That same night I couldn’t even bathe. When me wake up at 3:17 am I was still in my work clothes.
“I am a mother and I feel another mother’s pain. Belly pain is not easy pain. You can’t not love only your child. Knowing that it’s the same school my child come from, I feel it. Regular she come to school, is the driver drop her — but I came with her this morning. This school needs some big, thick security guards so when dem hear noise and fighting them can run go pull them apart,” she suggested.
A grandmother of one of the students said she could not sleep after the incident. She explained that every time she closed her eyes, she pictured her granddaughter.