By Sue-Ann Wayow
MEDIA personality Paolo Kernahan is urging all citizens to use social media to encourage a positive change in the approach to crime by politicians.
Kernahan said the same way in which persons took to social media to voice their disgruntlement on the way fetes were organised and the price of ketchup, mustard and pepper by KFC, the same way they now needed to get on social media to express their serious concerns about the crime situation.
According to Kernahan, citizens were being used as “collateral damage” for a government’s failure to effectively deal with crime.
In a video shared on Facebook on Wednesday, Kernahan lamented the death of Cheval Ramjattan, owner of Pills and Potions Pharmacy in Aranguez which took place on Tuesday night around 8.30 pm.
The video was shot in front of the pharmacy and he said he was in that pharmacy just one week ago looking for eye drops.
With all his interactions with Ramjattan, Kernahan, who now lives in Aranguez said he was always a hardworking, pleasant, affable young man.
Acknowledging that he could be speculating, he said that Ramjattan may have opened later than other pharmacies in the area perhaps due to competition and to cater to the persons who may get ill at a later time on evenings.
With the escalating criminal activity, most businesses in Aranguez now close at 6 pm, Kernahan said.
But it was especially disheartening to know that at the end of the crime symposium which was highly publicised, that a man’s life was snuffed out mere hours after at the hands of criminals.
Kernahan said, “At the conclusion of the crime symposium this kind of thing keeps happening because politicians, they don’t see us, we the collateral damage of their failure and incompetence.
“And because they don’t see us, they could come with recommendations like a ban on assault rifles which is ridiculous because the vast majority of violent crimes are perpetrated by handguns and illegal handguns at that.”
The ban would only allow politicians to poster a luxury, he added.
To citizens he said, “If ever there was a reason to get on camera and to get on Facebook is to show the politicians that we are not going to continue to tolerate the bloodshed that is a direct consequence of their failure, their corruption, their incompetence.”
He said if that starts happening, Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds would never be comfortable going on television “and smirking saying that a crime plan is not his responsibility.”
“If we don’t speak out in unison, we will continue to die,” Kernahan said.
He further told AZP News that while many persons gave him kudos for the video, he wished that more people will do more videos like that.
“If more people can do what I do, that will be good. If you don’t want to get on video no problem. You can make a statement. Put out a well-thought-out two paragraphs and share your story,” Kernahan said.
He said most people do not know where to start but social media was a good place which even led to physical movements in other countries.
Kernahan said citizens can share their own stories and how they were affected by crime, being made prisons in their homes and spaces, living in daily fear.
“Create enough noise so that politicians will have to pay attention,” he encouraged.
Kernahan, a former crime reporter said after years of being on the crime beat, crime is the worse it has ever been.
