Gumbs calls emergency meeting
to discuss security projects, funds
MARIGOT--President Frantz Gumbs is to convene an emergency council meeting today to allocate funds to fast-forward security projects and for youth associations in view of the disturbing crime situation.
One of the urgently needed projects is the installation of surveillance cameras in busy public areas.
Speaking about the crime situation in a Radio St. Martin interview yesterday, Gumbs said that coming from a teaching background it was his opinion that youths who had chosen the wrong path in life were the results of flawed upbringing and development.
“Young people over the age of 20 to 22 cannot be corrected,” he said. “The mindset of an 18-year-old cannot be changed. The character and personality have to be built from an early age.”
He said he did not know how the Collectivité or the State could have prevented the recent killings.
“The Collectivité is responsible for prevention of youth delinquency, on which we are working, and the State for repression (punishment), but somehow there has to be a coordinated effort to manage crime. Having national police would be ideal, but the judicial structure does not allow it presently. Even though we have a change of status, it will take some time to have national police here.”
He said youths were taking advantage of a situation where there was no specific judge in St. Martin for juvenile crimes and, moreover, the punishments didn’t fit the crimes.
Gumbs admitted he might have made an error of judgement by not speaking at the Nejumbia Fleming march, but said he took that family’s loss personally, they were friends of his family, and he was not someone who used sadness to gain political mileage. “I was there, I marched with them. They are my people. Regardless of which family it is, the pain is the same and I am in solidarity with these familie
