‘Death on high street’ sounds like the title of a bad ‘Western’, immediately conjuring up images of gun totting cowboys shooting it out in the Texas midday sun. I wish it, but that it ain’t. Rather, this is the sobering truth in the latest saga of a country seeming to lose its way.
Omara Smalls was gunned down in cold blood.
Coup de mains (helping hands) has given way to coup de peine ( sudden trouble). Our young men are killing each other as though in an orgy of death with every violent act more breathtaking than the one before.
In Dominica news spread fast, bad news even more quickly. Before Omari Smalls could draw his last breath, lying prone on his back, a pool of dark red blood pouring slowing from the gaping wounds in his head and chest, a large crowd had gathered, all jockeying for position, some with outstretched hands punching delicate keys on cellular phones, eager to get in on the action.
Others wailed softly, some jeered, others simply looked on dazed and in disbelief, their minds trying to make sense of something utterly senseless, seemingly out of place. No not here, not in Dominica.
To hear the locals tell it thirty-two year old Omari Smalls was a nice guy, eager to help his neighbors. A man desperate to put his past behind him. A past involving a sentence to hang for the murder of another young man. A sentence later overturned by the Privy Council, and at the age of twenty-seven a new lease on life.
I can hear it in the plaintive text messages of a bewildered and obviously traumatized daughter left to face the world without a father. “I just want people to know that my father was a good man. He was not what people say he was. I will always love him.”
And from the frantic call of my nephew in New York: “ Uncle, I still cannot believe that. Just a few days ago I spoke to him on the phone. We were in school together. You know him well he always used to check me at home.”
I listen to the voices of so many unknown radio callers. Some confused, others shocked. “This is spiritual you know.” And another. “The bible says we should kill those who kill.” A crescendo of cackling voices straining for clarity on the airwaves.
No doubt an equally eclectic mix of listeners, trying to discern truth from fiction, fact from opinion, and judgment from sympathy. All said with equal conviction, everyone so certain of their understanding of what just took place.
Truth confronts us in different ways. Some see it straightaway, others do so with time. In the end, it stares us all in the face. As much as we wished this was not us, not our brother, our neighbor, someone we would have known, probably seen at some point riding his Yamaha bike at breakneck speeds up and down the narrow streets of Roseau, we all know.
The truth that is. This scene was repeating itself. The last time, there were no crowds, only the graphic police photos mysteriously appearing on the internet. But, the scene was the same; a broken, bloodied, bullet riddled body lying prone on its back, eyes wide shut in that steady gaze of death. His name was Marcus Peltier. Gunned down by an as yet unknown assailant. A young life lost, yet again.
From the silent gentle darkness of the Dominican night another hand had raised a gun in anger and extinguished a life. We are beginning to think that no one is safe, where will that hand or another similar hand strike next.
When did this behavior become us. In just thirty months, twenty eight lives taken violently; more than all the lives lost in a similar manner in over three decades of our history. The level of violence is numbing.
Three young men lured to sea, shot at close range and left to float in a boat as though to be swallowed up by the mighty ocean. Their killer perhaps too timid to push them overboard. Young men thrusting knifes into their neighbors chest, others using their bare hands to kill their friends. None of this makes any sense, nothing rhymes, everything so confusing.
Dominica is supposed to be a beautiful place, where we all know each other and look out for each other. These crimes only happen overseas, not here, not now. So why now? Why us?
This past Wednesday some say we lost our innocence as a country. Others say that it is long gone. Lost in the vacant stares of young men huddled at street corners desperate for the next fix. Or hiding in the turbulent public exchanges of corruption, charge and counter charge. Maybe under the masks of armed young men shooting their way into businesses.
It was not supposed to be like this. The children have grown up and they appear lost. A generation veering on the edge. Who knows, who cares. Does anyone really? Let’s try this. Where did we go wrong?
Why is this person lying in wait to spring death on one and a sense of doom and foreboding on all? One thing is certain. The blood stains on high street may soon be washed away by the ever present rain, but the mark on the Nation remains.
Forever etched on our consciences, stubborn, inconsiderate, and like that really bad Western, wishing it would all end and soon.
