Central Kingstown MP, St. Clair Leacock, on Monday, one day after another murder in St Vincent this year, said he was taking lessons that he has given and speaking carefully on crime matters.
“… it is obvious that I’m taking lessons that I’ve given to myself. I’m speaking very carefully, carefully, carefully on crime matters, for reasons more than one,” he said on his New Democratic Party’s (NDP) daytime programme on NICE Radio.
“It’s this clear that, notwithstanding what this fella we have is saying, that an increasing number of our young people are looking to crime as a way out of their frustration, and the sooner we can get a hold of it, it’s the better,” the three-term MP said in an apparent reference to Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves.
Leacock was speaking one day after Daniel “Tiger” Isaacs, 43, of New Montrose, was shot and killed in Sion Hill.
Police, citing reports, said that on Sunday, about 11:30 a.m., Isaacs was at a shop in Sion Hill when a masked assailant approached and shot him about his body, killing him on the spot.
Leacock said that the crime situation is not a case “to duck the responsibility and blame the guns coming out of America — because we don’t make gun, they have to be coming out of America.
“And you never said that you blame Toussaint and Mitchell for coke (cocaine) but you ain’t blaming the Latin American countries from which many people suspect the coke (cocaine) may be coming…” Leacock said.
“But a lot, a lot — too many of our young people, and for small monies in many instances, very small money, are losing their lives. Because there’s no work, there’s no job, there’s no hope on the horizon and despair seems to be the order of the day; hopelessness, abandonment, uncertainty about the future.”
The NDP vice-president said it is urgent that the NDP, under the leadership of Godwin Friday, gets to office “so we can arrest that decay in the society.
“Because — I don’t even want to use the word painful because it seems people are so numb these days that when one dies, all they say, ‘How much is it? ‘Four?’ ‘It’s five? six? or is it 10?’ People are more into the numbers count than the loss of life. When a country reaches that way, we are in a bad way,” Leacock said.
“… as you say, I say and we say, the night you elect a New Democratic Party into government, your lives get better. For St. Vincent to grow, ULP must go,” Leacock told listeners.
Investigators are asking people with information that can help solve the crime to telephone 1-784-457-1211 ext 4816; 1784-456-1810 or any police station in the country.
Alternatively, they can speak to any police officer with whom they are comfortable.
“All information received would be treated confidentially. Investigations into the matter are ongoing.”
Police said that Isaacs death is the fourth homicide recorded in SVG for 2023. They have not included in the count the two people that they have shot and killed this year.