Derek Achong

A 14-year-old school­boy yes­ter­day re­mained in po­lice cus­tody af­ter he al­leged­ly poi­soned a 13-year-old class­mate whom he claimed was bul­ly­ing him. The form two stu­dent, who at­tends Blan­chisseuse High School, was ar­rest­ed by po­lice on Mon­day af­ter­noon af­ter sev­er­al stu­dents told the prin­ci­pal of the in­ci­dent.

The vic­tim, of Hamil­ton Street, Mara­cas Bay yes­ter­day re­mained ward­ed at the In­ten­sive Care Unit of the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope. While be­ing in­ter­ro­gat­ed yes­ter­day, the sus­pect, from Paria, Blan­chisseuse told in­ves­ti­ga­tors that on Mon­day morn­ing he stole a quan­ti­ty of Lanate weed­i­cide from a gar­den­er he does odd jobs for. The sus­pect told in­ves­ti­ga­tors he want­ed to poi­son his class­mates af­ter months of se­vere bul­ly­ing from them.

The T&T Guardian un­der­stands that the sus­pect ad­mit­ted to mix­ing a tox­ic cock­tail us­ing the chem­i­cal and a fruity soft drink, which he put in a plas­tic bot­tle. Po­lice said around 3 pm on Mon­day, the sus­pect re­moved the bot­tle from his bag and of­fered a sip to sev­er­al un­sus­pect­ing stu­dents, who re­fused be­cause they said the drink smelt "fishy."

The vic­tim, how­ev­er, re­port­ed­ly grabbed the bot­tle and took a big gulp. The T&T Guardian was told that af­ter the stu­dent drank the poi­son, the sus­pect said, "You drink it, now you will dead," be­fore run­ning away. Af­ter a cou­ple of min­utes the stu­dent was tak­en to the prin­ci­pal's of­fice by his friends to re­port the in­ci­dent and was then tak­en to hos­pi­tal by his par­ents.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, the vic­tim's moth­er, who did not wish to be iden­ti­fied, said she was shocked and dis­tressed by the in­ci­dent. She said that her son's con­di­tion had im­proved since Mon­day night and up to yes­ter­day af­ter­noon he was list­ed in a sta­ble con­di­tion at the pae­di­atric ward of the hos­pi­tal.

Sgt Steve Do­dridge of the Blan­chisseuse Po­lice Sta­tion vis­it­ed the school yes­ter­day morn­ing and spoke to stu­dents about the in­ci­dent. Do­dridge al­so ad­vised the stu­dents of sev­er­al meth­ods of con­flict man­age­ment and res­o­lu­tion. Se­nior po­lice sources said that in­ves­ti­ga­tors would mon­i­tor the vic­tim's con­di­tion be­fore crim­i­nal charges are laid against the teenaged sus­pect.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors are con­sid­er­ing lay­ing a num­ber of charges in­clud­ing at­tempt­ed mur­der and ad­min­is­ter­ing a tox­ic sub­stance with in­tent to cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm. Su­per­in­ten­dent John Daniel, ASP Mil­let and Cpl Aguillera al­so vis­it­ed the scene. Do­dridge is in­ves­ti­gat­ing the in­ci­dent.