Creary: We have lost a generation
Mayor calls for conflict resolution intervention after teen killed at football game
Published:Tuesday | December 13, 2022 | 12:06 AMGareth Davis Sr/Gleaner Writer
Port Maria Mayor Richard Creary has expressed concern for Jamaica, arguing that the nation is facing a serious conflict resolution crisis, after a 17-year-old boy was fatally stabbed following a dispute at a football game in St Mary on the weekend.
Oshene Scott was reportedly playing football with friends at Pagee Beach in Port Maria about 4 p.m. on Sunday, when an argument developed between him and another person. The dispute escalated into a fight in which Scott was stabbed in the chest.
According to the police, Scott ran from the beach but later collapsed.
He was pronounced dead at hospital.
“We have a serious conflict resolution problem,” Creary said in condemning the murder. “I am sure these are people who play football every day. There is probably a slight dispute, and instead of trying to work it out, they decide to war it out; somebody has to kill somebody. I am worried for Jamaica and I am worried for the young people. They do not know how to deal with disputes. ... [The] police cannot be at everybody’s yard or at every cricket ground.”
Creary said that the fatal incident has rattled the Cox Street community, where the victim lived.
“Our young men and women need to find a better way to deal with conflict,” the mayor continued, charging parents to make a greater effort to get their children to develop dispute resolution skills.
“So we need to learn to resolve our conflicts and that has to start in the home. There is no parenting in the home again; they have relinquished that to the schools, and the schools have so many issues dealing with students … and when the children go out there what they see is the same thing happening in the community,” said Creary.
He also called on educators, starting at the early childhood level, to also place a stronger emphasis on teaching the youth to manage interpersonal conflicts without resorting to violence.
“I strongly believe that we have lost a generation and we need to start working on the next generation. We need to start very young. Some of these teenagers and persons in their 20s and so on, ... they just believe that it is a normal behaviour,” Creary lamented. “I don’t have the answers as to what should be done, but I strongly believe that we need to go back to that age group – the kindergarten age group – to see if that new generation coming up will be different from this one, but if it continues to get worse every generation, God help us,” he concluded.
Sunday’s incident was the second murder in St Mary in less than a week. It followed the shooting death of 19-year-old fisherman Desmond Mitchell at his home in Annotto Bay on December 5.