Our streets are soaked with the blood of our youths and now, with the cold-blooded execution of activist Albert Cattouse, we now know that not even the old are safe. Violence is a mainstay of our diet and we are so accustomed to it that we simply say “oh mein… that sad” or “praying for the family” or “RIP” or “it breaks my heart” or “OMG!” and more, each time we see or read of yet another murder. The point is that we now mechanically express an emotion, but there is no action or heart behind it. There is not sufficient disgust in us or basic patriotism, to cause our people to answer to a call for action. We are down-trodden and defeated because we elect not to act against the level of complacency we as a society have fallen into. It is a rather sad reality, but in our own sadistic way we look forward to hearing about the next shooting, the next murder, the next victim, and the next morbid details of the violence in our cities, towns and even some rural areas. It is morbid and there must be sufficient of us with sufficient disgust and spunk still left in us to get out of the mode of complacency and rise to action to curb the crime situation, fight corruption and injustices as our brother Albert Cattouse did!
The irony of Queen’s Square
I wish I had the statistics to show how many shootings and ensuing murders actually take place annually in Queen’s Square, the constituency of Prime Minister Dean Barrow, as he has been the undefeated area representative for the past 33 years. While I may not know how many of the 114 murders thus far, for 2017, occurred in the Queen’s Square area, I know for sure that the 100th murder was in the Queen’s Square Division, and it was the execution of senior community activist, 72-year-old Albert Cattouse. This struck close to home.
Thus, it is a major irony that the last person who should be trying to downplay the significance of that murder and the political motivation that is apparently behind it, is Dean Oliver Barrow, who is not only the area representative and political candidate for the United Democratic Party, but also the 9-year reigning prime minister. It is so ironic that Bro. Albert Cattouse would die at the hands of his executioner on the very streets where Dean Barrow rules… yes, the same Dean Barrow, whose high fuel prices Mr. Cattouse, so vehemently denounced a week just before his death!
And the irony is even more salient when, to my knowledge, no one has been arrested and charged for his execution and the killer, per eyewitness accounts, fled the scene, yet the Prime Minister, through “briefings” with the police was able to say that Bro. Cattouse was killed by his “fare”, meaning his passenger. He was able to say at his press brief that Mr. Cattouse was hired for a taxi run. Per Barrow: “The fare had him drive to a particular neighbourhood where two other persons came into the taxi and then Mister Cattouse was told that they needed him go to a particular area. By then he realized that a gun was evident and the version the police have been told is that he refused, he said he wasn’t on that.”
The irony grows even more when the PM was even able to say what went through the mind of Cattouse when he stated: “Obviously, the fear [by Cattouse] was that these people were going to in fact perform some sort of hit or commit murder or some heinous act and he [Cattouse] refused. And according to the report I saw, he told them they had to get out and [he] stopped his taxi and they exited. But when they were exiting, one of them shot him and killed him” …. Hmmm. I find that only the killer and his two alleged companions, if any, would have known this conversation, and to my knowledge none is in custody… so who gave this narrative now being spewed to us? Who heard this conversation other than those present at the execution? It cannot be the neighbours, because that area in Hicatee Street is fairly isolated and the main structure on one side is the walls of the Roger’s Stadium and the Queen’s Square Market on the other side. Plus from the photos of the scene of the execution the level of isolation from houses, could be ascertained!
It is even more ironic that said execution took place just some two blocks from the Racoon Street Police Station, as if the brazen affront was an indication of the level of confidence the killer or killers had in knowing they could get away with said crime!