This is not a topic for the festive season, but there’s a problem which is affecting me, and I wish for the family concerned to understand and accept their responsibility.
When it comes to mental illness, it is the immediate family of the victim or invalid, who have to make difficult, painful decisions. Mental patients endanger themselves, but what is worse, they endanger innocent, productive members of society. There is where the responsibility of the immediate family kicks in, and you can’t dodge. When the mental patient is also violent in behaviour, or shows violent symptoms, then the situation becomes more urgent, the responsibility more critical. It’s tough, very tough.
In 1975, a well-known and high-ranking Belize City businessman shot a mentally disturbed person dead. The young man who was killed was the son of another well-known and high ranking businessman, but it was more relevant to myself that he had been an officer in the UBAD organization during the first hectic months in 1969.
The young man had traveled to New York City, and our reports were that he had experimented with various drugs over there. After he went abroad, and then returned home, I had no direct contact with him. A moody person in 1969, he seemed to have become completely withdrawn, disturbed in the years ensuing. I could not have testified in court as if I had personal knowledge of this. I only heard things.
When he was shot dead, I instinctively sympathized with him, because of our UBAD association, and I felt resentment towards the shooter. Could he not have utilized less deadly violence against my brother?
The following year, 1976, a mentally disturbed person shot and killed a fisherman we knew at Mike’s Club as “Punch” or “Puppy.” Guns were not plentiful in Belize in 1976, but they were around. Punch was a fine, strong, upright Belizean. He smoked cigarettes, but I don’t believe he drank alcohol. What impressed me the most, and I was a “man about town” in those days, Punch never used profanity. Under pressure in a dominoes or billiards game, the most he would say was, “Deegans.” Yes, Puppy was a real salt-of-the-earth Belizean. His murder was vile and senseless. (Elsewhere in this issue of the newspaper is reproduced the headline story I wrote in March of 1976.)
So, in 1975 an innocent citizen had shot a mentally disturbed person dead, and then in 1976 a mentally disturbed person had shot an innocent citizen dead. Mentally ill people are dangers to themselves, but, what is worse, they endanger innocent citizens.
My personal experiences with the problems of mental illness are excruciating. Around 1971, a police officer by the name of Brown, I believe his first name was Adolph, came to see me. He was a mechanic by profession, and was a polite, solid citizen. Mr. Brown complained to me that my younger brother, Stephen, had slapped one of his sons.
My younger brother had begun showing signs of mental problems while attending St. John’s College Sixth Form in 1969, 1970. Now he had assaulted a young, innocent citizen. My parents had moved to Belmopan in 1970, so I was the head of the family in Belize City. I went looking for two of my other younger brothers – Nelson and Michael, after Mr. Brown made his complaint to me.
We found Stephen early that night in the middle of the Swing Bridge. “The Bumble Bee,” as we affectionately called him, had what looked like a knife in his hand, and there was overpowering, unjustifiable intensity in his eyes. In Belize in 1971 in such a situation, unless you were rich, you really had no choice but to take your beloved family member to the Seaview Hospital. In 1971, this was like a death sentence to your beloved family member. It may still be so in 2008, but the welfare of society is more important than an individual invalid. This is the way it has to be, if society is to function properly. (We have seen other kinds of cases in Belize, and more and more this is the norm, where individuals have become so wealthy and powerful that it appears that they are more important than the larger society. But the rule remains – society before individuals.)
My younger brother ended up dying about 30 years later. He died at our family home on West Canal, where he spent the last 13 years of his life being diligently cared for by our aging mother. He had been given up for dead in 1988 by the Rockview Hospital authorities. Crippled by all the medications and whatever, Stephen could no longer fight for his food at Rockview, and if you couldn’t fight for your food at Rockview, then you would starve.
In 1988, I was again in charge of the family in Belize City, because everyone was at Spanish Caye, when the Rockview people called and told me to go to the Belize City Hospital for my brother, because he was about to die. What they didn’t tell me, was that the problem was starvation.
Those of us who loved Stephen suffered more than thirty years of pain. But, no Belizean has the right to endanger other citizens because he or she loves their family member too much to institutionalize that family member. I’m talking to you as one who has felt the pain, unspeakable pain. I didn’t choose for life to be the way it is. But there are rules by which all of us should abide. If we don’t, the result can be worse than institutionalization. We saw that graphically in 1975, and again in 1976. These were cases I knew about personally, so that is why I cited them. Recently, the Ryan Horne/Esquivel sisters tragedy was even more horrific. Those with eyes to see, let them see.
Freak shot Puppy down (1976)
BELIZE CITY, Monday, March 15 (1976)
A homosexual freak, a known, convicted molester of young boys, a scum of Belize, this morning 10 a.m. shot down a strong and capable Belizean fisherman named Winston Tillett, 41, known to his friends and acquaintances as “Punch” or “Puppy.”
The freak shot Punch in the chest as Punch was coming out of a Victoria Street shop with a tin of milk in one hand and a packet of soap powder in the other. Punch fell, and as he was trying to get up off the ground, the freak shot him at least twice more in the back of the head. The corpse of this great brother lay face down in the street of a widening pool of blood, bits of his brains coming out of the back of his head, his hands clutching on to the soap powder and milk.
A 73 year old woman Rosell McGregor, living in the same yard as Punch, was the Freak’s next victim when she expressed sympathy for the dead man. She died in the Belize City Hospital a couple hours after he broke into her house and shot her down also.
A wave of shock followed by deep grief hit Belize, for Punch was a man with no enemies, a man who never cursed a bad word or expressed anger with his brethren. He was a real salt of the Belizean earth and sea, for many Belizeans young and old depended upon him for their life-giving fish. In fact, just two weeks ago Punch saved a four-year-old girl from drowning.
And so, after the grief of the people came righteous and vengeful anger. Many people are saying that they will have to start hanging again, as Belize cannot afford to lose men like Winston Tillett so easily. Again, the people are wondering about all these so-called “mental cases” who are terrorizing hard working Belizeans and getting away with murder, literally and figuratively. If the law cannot deal with the criminals, then it will be only a matter of time before law-abiding citizens form vigilante committees and take the law into their own hands.
For it is feared that Punch’s killer will claim mental derangement and get away free. The people are saying that Punch was killed because he gave the old lady, Rosell McGregor, fish for herself and her grandchildren instead of giving the freak. There is no excuse for such a killing. It is an abomination upon this land, and Moses’ law is the only answer – an eye for an eye.
– pg. 1, Amandala no. 319, Friday, March 19, 1976