Barbados is at a tipping point in its fight against crime, and only a united, all-of-society response can pull the nation back from the brink.
That was the message delivered by Deputy Prime Minister Santia Bradshaw and Minister of Home Affairs Wilfred Abrahams at a Barbados Labour Party (BLP) Christ Church East branch meeting on Sunday night at St Christopher Primary School, as they issued a joint plea for national mobilisation against rising gun violence, drug abuse and social breakdown.
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They were speaking hours after a shooting spree by four men on two motorcycles in two St Michael districts in the afternoon resulted in another homicide, the 26th for the year and seventh in this month alone.
The fatal shooting of a young man – whose identity was not released up to press time – occurred around 2:48 p.m. at the junction of Whitehall Main Road and St Stephen’s Hill, with another man suffering gunshot wounds and being taken to hospital.
A short time before, a security video captured four men on two motorcycles riding through Nelson Street, The City, spraying bullets, with one of them holding a large gun. Some buildings and vehicles were left bullet-riddled.
“This is no longer a partisan issue. This is Barbados,” Abrahams declared, warning that the country is facing a new, more dangerous wave of crime driven by synthetic drugs and irrational, violent behaviour.
“We are trying to use rational thinking to deal with irrational people – and it’s not working.”
Both ministers painted a grim picture of communities fraying under the weight of addiction, trauma and lawlessness, with Bradshaw speaking emotionally about burying young men from her own St Michael South East constituency and others she had known for decades.
“Every time I hear about another shooting, it’s like a blow to the gut,” she said.
“It’s not a statistic, it’s somebody’s son, somebody’s neighbour, and too often, someone I know.”
The Deputy Prime Minister, visibly moved as she spoke, revealed that of the 25 homicides reported in Barbados just days earlier, she personally knew at least 20 of the victims.
“This is no longer something you read in a paper or see online. This is our reality. It’s our communities, our children, our neighbours, and we are becoming numb to it.”
Bradshaw issued a direct challenge to Barbadians: “What are you doing to help stop this? Not the Government, you. What are you doing to pull a young man off the block, to give a child a pair of football boots, to help someone start a business, to show them that they matter?”
She said Government’s efforts, no matter how robust, could not succeed without community partnership.
“We talk about a whole-of-Government approach, but what we need is a whole-of-country response. The Government can’t do this alone. We don’t live in your homes. We don’t know what’s happening in your streets, but you do.”
Abrahams, who is also Member of Parliament for Christ Church East, urged Barbadians to stop “turning a blind eye” and to speak up about the illegal activities and dangerous influences festering in their own homes and neighbourhoods. He revealed disturbing stories from recent school visits, including a student who asked what to do if the person pressuring him to use drugs was a family member living in the same house.
“We are dealing with a generation exposed to substances they don’t even understand,” he said. “We have a drug abuse problem that is linked directly to the robberies and the shootings. Some of these people are not in their right minds. If we don’t confront that
reality, then we are deluding ourselves.”
He also expressed frustration with public complacency, noting that many citizens hesitate to report known criminal activity.
“If you know something and you say nothing, and a tragedy happens, then you are part of the problem too.” The minister pointed to initiatives by the National Council on Substance Abuse and other Government bodies, but lamented that many parents did not even know what synthetic drugs looked like.
