Main­ly young black men are dy­ing on the streets, ac­cord­ing to UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Jear­lean John.

“And the PNM At­tor­ney Gen­er­al tells you don’t wor­ry, be hap­py, it worst in Gaza,” John claimed at Mon­day’s UNC Re­port at Cou­va’s Mul­ti-Pur­pose Hall.

John took the PNM Gov­ern­ment to task on the sit­u­a­tion, ac­cus­ing them of not car­ing be­cause such youths were “ex­pend­able”.

“At the rate we’re go­ing, on De­cem­ber 31, we’re like­ly to end up at 600 mur­ders or like­ly high­er for 2023. Of course, ex­pect the Gov­ern­ment to tell us it could have been worst at 700. I can call the PNM’s crime fight­ing ini­tia­tives tooth­less, but then that will be an in­sult to den­tures,” John said.

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and deputies Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, David Lee and MP Rudy In­dars­ingh al­so slammed Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on oth­er is­sues, in­clud­ing T&T’s crime.

John said: “On Sun­day at around 7.45 am the DJ Sher­iff News out­fit placed the homi­cide rate at 513. By mid­day (Mon­day) it was 516. So, we know for sure the on­ly thing go­ing up in T&T is Row­ley’s fre­quent fly­er miles ac­count and the mur­der rate.”

She said it re­mind­ed her of a quote: “But the PNM is sat­is­fied to just look on as: ‘Dreams killed, am­bi­tions un­ful­filled. Un­born in the womb, straight to the tomb. Shak­ing from the shock, death around the clock.’ Still, they in­sist all of the black boys are gang lead­ers or mem­bers.”

Cit­ing a re­port on an al­leged “peace agree­ment” be­tween po­lice and gangs, John said: “This is in­ter­est­ing if as re­port­ed, the war­ring frac­tion had a Kum­baya mo­ment fa­cil­i­tat­ed by po­lice and war done. In eight years, over 4,000 mur­ders and it’s now been re­vealed that all the man was yearn­ing for all this time were two pi­geons to car­ry mes­sage!”

“But this Gov­ern­ment and their agents sub­scribe to all kinds of short term ‘maybe, coul­da, woul­da, shoul­da,’ plas­ters. It ap­pears there’s no tragedy enough to touch the Prime Min­is­ter in a way that will com­pel him to act his age, to meet the mo­ment, since he re­fus­es to meet the Op­po­si­tion Leader for se­ri­ous an­ti-crime talks, to get to the root of this un­ac­cept­able scourge,” she added. John said she’s all for peace be­cause peo­ple are “paral­ysed with fear” about the home in­va­sions, at­tacks on teenage girls and “mur­ders of most­ly young black men be­tween ages 14 to 30 years, who may be se­ri­ous­ly an­ti-so­cial, home­less, dropped out of school, tak­en to sub­stance abuse or en­gaged in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties”.

“Fac­tors that place these young peo­ple at risk in the first place—pover­ty, fam­i­ly dys­func­tion, dis­turbed neigh­bour­hoods—are of­ten not fac­tored in­to any equa­tion. In many in­stances, they’re main­ly guilty of be­ing black and poor. What’s ur­gent­ly need­ed is a ‘piece’ of train­ing, ed­u­ca­tion, jobs and forex to sus­tain small busi­ness­es. Op­por­tu­ni­ty for a piece of the pie for every­one,” John said.

“But Row­ley de­cid­ed from day 1, they ain’t get­ting no piece ... You see how Row­ley hap­py smil­ing when he got a pho­to op with a re­al bil­lion­aire in Sau­di Ara­bia. Then I looked at him on tele­vi­sion his face vex again—stiff as if it had Botox!” claimed John.

She said if the “peace deal” was true, then the PNM “has sunk to a new low with their ut­ter­ly grotesque­ly im­moral and to­tal­ly un­work­able plans for safe­ty ... T&T needs to start over!”

Mooni­lal called for an in­de­pen­dent probe of al­leged “peace deals”. He ac­cused Row­ley of blovi­at­ing at Mon­day’s brief­ing and suf­fer­ing from “li­a­betes”.

In­dars­ingh not­ed the Paria Com­mis­sion of En­quiry re­port in­to the deaths of the four LM­CS divers will be de­liv­ered to the Pres­i­dent on No­vem­ber 30. He called for Row­ley to en­sure it’s laid in Par­lia­ment and sent to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions “and let the chips fall where they may if any­one’s cul­pa­ble of neg­li­gence!”