3 kids mowed down
TWO little boys and their sister were yesterday hit down and killed by a motor car, while they were on their way to school in Prospect, St Thomas.
The official police report said the three — Anakay Roberts, 12; Carlton Carty, nine and their little brother Devonte Carty, six — were crossing the Prospect main road when they were hit by a route taxi, which was reportedly racing with another taxi cab. Anakay and Carlton died on the spot while Devonte was taken to the Princess Margaret’s Hospital, before being transferred to the Kingston Public Hospital, where he later died.
However, Corporal Osbourne Barnes, of the Morant Bay police, who witnessed the incident, said the children were standing by the road side when they were hit down.
“I was driving westerly towards Morant Bay, when I observed three children standing on the left side of the road, apparently waiting on a taxi to go to school. I saw two cars speeding in the opposite direction. The road was very wet and they were coming at a very fast speed. I then saw through my rear view mirror and saw objects flying through the air,” the officer said. The children, he added, were thrown a distance of about 70 yards by the impact of the blow. “I realised that two of them might have been dead and one was still breathing.”
The drivers of both motor cars have been taken into custody for questioning by the Morant Bay police.
The children’s mother, Icilda Treasure, was in a state of shock and had to be admitted to the Princess Margaret’s Hospital for treatment. Treasure related the last time she had seen her children alive.
“They were on their way to school and because of the rain I called them back twice. I was in the bathroom when I told them they could go. They sheltered under a big umbrella and made their way. I was about to go to work when the police car came and told me. I just broke down in tears. All now I can’t believe,” Treasure said from her hospital bed.
Anakay’s father, Jerome Roberts, was at a loss for words and just shook his head in disbelief.
Anakay was a Grade Six student at the Port Morant Primary and Junior High School and her death has cast a pall of gloom over the school population.
Karen Smith, Anakay’s Grade Six teacher described her former student as one who any teacher would want to work with.
“Great things were expected from Anakay. She was the type of student you could call on for anything at anytime,” Smith, with tears streaming down her cheek, told the Observer.
Residents of Prospect had blocked the main road in the district to protest against the death of the children. According to the residents, drivers on that stretch of road show little consideration for pedestrians as they always speed through the area.
A heavy detachment of police from Morant Bay and the Mobile Reserve cleared the roadblock
However, some of the residents complained to the Observer that the police teargassed them, and seemed unmoved by their grief.
“Imagine, a no gunman we a block road fi support and dem come deal with we so cold,” one man said.
Another man, who claimed that he was in his house cooking when a teargas cannister fell outside his window, said: “Me have to take up mi little baby and move. A cook mi a cook and them fire the teargas inna mi yard. No protest naw go on inna my yard,” the man said angrily.