Ak­ile Si­mon

A po­lice in­spec­tor who stopped to in­ves­ti­gate the fa­tal stab­bing of a stu­dent in St Joseph yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, would lat­er learn that the vic­tim was his nephew. In­sp Cur­tis Paul, who heads the North East­ern Di­vi­sion Com­mu­ni­ty Po­lice Unit, was al­most brought to tears when he ar­rived at the trau­ma room of the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope, and saw the face of his nephew, Dil­lon Grif­fith, 18, peak­ing out of a body bag. Un­der the stretch­er, where Grif­fith lay, was a pool of blood, from the in­juries he sus­tained af­ter he was stabbed on the left side of his chest, with a sharp ob­ject, while in the com­pa­ny of one of his friends. Grif­fith was al­leged­ly at­tacked af­ter he was ac­cused of watch­ing one of the sus­pects "too hard."

The in­ci­dent oc­curred out­side a par­lour near the St Joseph Recre­ation Grounds, op­po­site the old St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion. Po­lice said af­ter the vic­tim was stabbed, he was chased by two sus­pects across the PBR, near the St Joseph TML Pri­ma­ry school, where a scuf­fle be­gan. Re­count­ing what had tran­spired, Paul, who ap­peared to be trans­fig­ured by the turn of events, said, he could not be­lieve it was his rel­a­tive. "I don't know...I re­al­ly don't know. "I don't think it is my nephew. No, it can't be him...I bet­ter call his fa­ther now. "No, Let's wait un­til we reach to the hos­pi­tal and we would know for sure if its him," Paul said, mo­ments af­ter he re­ceived a phone call from head of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion, Snr Supt Theophillus Cum­mings, who gave him the iden­ti­ty of the vic­tim.

Short­ly af­ter, Cum­mings and his of­fi­cers held two sus­pects. At the hos­pi­tal, Paul hugged his broth­er, Gor­don, (Grif­fith's fa­ther) and told him, "now is the time for us as a fam­i­ly to re­main strong." Grif­fith, who lived at San­ta Rosa Heights, Ari­ma, was a fifth form stu­dent of the St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary School. He died around 2.55pm, while un­der­go­ing emer­gency surgery. One of his main ar­ter­ies on the left side of his chest was punc­tured. Po­lice have since seized a foot-long weapon, they de­scribed as a "dag­ger," which was thrown over the wall of the St Joseph TML school, by one of the sus­pects.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Es­ter Le Gen­dre, who drove by the crime scene, an hour af­ter the killing, was told about the trag­ic in­ci­dent by In­sp Paul.