Young Gussy's Life should be a Lesson to Us

We as a nation of people are not largely introspective. It is fine time that we begin to look into ourselves and see that the methods that we have been using to fight crime and violence are redundant. The ministry of security must realize that the tactic of murdering criminals have created more social maladies now than it did thirty years ago. We have a fractured justice system and an inept legislative process that often exonerate criminals therefore leaving the police officers with no other choice than to exterminate alleged murderers. 

Innocent people like Gussy get caught up in these melodramas because even though people claim Kirky was a bad boy, he was never prosecuted by the courts in all his suspected cases, in the eyes of the law, he is still an innocent man. 

Police have been killing murderers from I was child and yet we have brook a society of more criminals. It signals that the technique of crime fighting is at its best ineffective. Until we address the social maladies that breeds criminals then we will be doing this process over and over again. 

Police Officers are merely slaves who were given guns and now feel as if they are masters and so to feel truly important in this society they must enslave others. Their guns and badges does not make then a master, they are still slaves with only a driving whip and a free pass. They are the agents of change and they are not using this weaponry effectively. 

We have proven that killing our young men only stalls the crime rate for a few years until our pubescent boys become adults face the same pressures of those that are gone before them. They have not been socialized how to deal efficaciously with peer pressure , lack of available employment, covetousness and masculine validation. Every young man wants to feel important in his community. He wants women to love him, his elders to admire his accomplishments and his peers to envy and worship him. Our young men are not schooled on how to be adult men of virtues. 

Gussy father deserted him and his brothers when they were children. Gussy was never accorded proper values by a male role model. His father abandoned his sons and left them to their own plights. 

His mother hustled on the street side to send them to school. They lived in abject poverty. People did not even want to take a glass of water from their house to drink primarily because of how the place reeked of squalor. And Gussy managed by means unknown to rise out of his derelict state to become a true gem in our communities. 

People claim Gussy was a scammer, he may have been but that is the course that most of our young men are force to  take because our government, leaders and people like even me have failed to create avenues for employment and occupation for our disaffected youths. 

We have failed our children. We failed Gussy. People said Gussy had options, I believed he didn't have much. Imagine growing up in house with too many children and feeling embarrassed as a teenage about where you live. Gussy's mother never turned away any child from playing with her children. Gussy wanted more for his family and scamming may have allocated him the avenue to do so. 

A lot of money comes with great responsibility. Money attracts people, it is a compelling concept and a magnetic factor. Money is such a powerful tool in Jamaica. People want money more than religion or anything else. Money is the machinery to survival. Money make people want to be your friend. The good, the bad and the indifferent. We have to choose wisely who we are and who we allow to be in our company. Having money does not insure us from certain demise. Money only seems to create more problems. 

Gussy may have needed someone to teach him how to effectively utilize his money and how to guide his financial future, I would have opted to be that person if only he had requested that I did. But Gussy is still young and easily distracted by momentary gratification in his life. He probably thought me like most people wanted his money and were only pretending to care about his well being. 

Gussy like many young people think that the accumulation of wealth should be used for chaos and funding criminal networks. Money should be used for the advancement of our society and community. If some of these scammers were venture capitalist, funding talents and entrepreneurial ideas within our communities, we would not have to bury so many of these scammers. But it all chalks down to values. The values one embraces ultimately decides what choices we will make as an individual. 

I hope Gussy's life is a lesson to our young men that this bad culture is only a temporary gratification. All gangsters must die. Do not become collateral damage. You should never put your self in precarious position that people can reason out you to be a liability to society and are for we by circumstances to annihilate you. 

I see his friends mourn for him and I know the lessons learned from his death may be short lived. They feel fiercely about the need for change because his death is recent, as time goes by and the hurt palliates, they too may fall back into old habits. People do not change overnight but I hope Gussy's death was a lesson to them.