We sat together, sipped red wine and nibbled on delicious pasta. We were about to play a game of backgammon but settled on casual conversation about U.S. politics and why some residents on St. Thomas still haven't had clean water since early December.
Just before the expensive Italian ice cream was served for dessert, about four gun shots were heard in the distance.
I knew exactly where they came from but everyone else questioned whether they were even gun shots at all. We finished our ice cream and continued to chat while a slight breeze came in off the harbor.
Then five more gun shots sounded from the same direction.
Ahh, only on St. Thomas. I really can't make this shit up.
While I texted the news reporter in the office to let him know about the multiple shots fired in the Paul M. Pearson Gardens Public Housing Project, it just struck me how adverse some parts of the island are.
If you drive down the road closest to the dock where all the cruise ship yuppies flourish, one side of the road is the housing project and the other has gaudy merchandise stores and millionaire yacht owners. In the middle -- or concrete median in this case -- the USVI Government dropped serious coin and decided to plant 40-foot palm trees to disguise the obvious.
Last week, our paper published a story about how there were 48 homicides in the territory last year (which was a 3-year low).
In reaction, I overheard tourism puppets ask questions like, "How could they publish that story with six boats in port?" and "Oh, they're just trying to sell papers."
Some people just ignore the truth. It's pretty sad.
And the truth is that St. Thomas is very safe. I have, at no time since I've lived here, feared for my life or felt like I was in direct danger.
Yes, those 48 homicides ranked us No. 8 in the world (below El Salvador and Iraq) in deaths per 100,000 people. But how many of them were tourists? Very few, if any.
I'm not going to say that all the homicides were acceptable or explainable. Of course, they are not. But if you read the article written by my colleague, Danny Shea, that is linked right above, you will learn that a majority of the deaths are retaliatory.
Once again, there are no condolences here. Killing people is not right. But I hate when people think that St. Thomas is just a gang-affiliated, bullet hole-riddled crime scene.
It is so not. It is very beautiful and the people I have met are sincere.
But just like any place on this planet, there are some seedy neighborhoods. In those areas, people have guns. And sometimes, those people like to shoot them off.
No murders or confirmed shot victims were reported last night. So next time you hear gun shots in the middle of the night, do not fear the world is going to end. And please, cut the island some slack. After all, two cop cars reported to the scene about 20 minutes later -- not a bad response time on an island that is 11 miles long.
When I walked into the newsroom today, the reporter I texted the night before thanked me for the information.
"Anything come of it?" I asked.
"Nah, there were three other 'shots fired' reports on other parts of the island last night," he said. "But I went surfing this morning. There was a killer swell."
No comments:
Post a Comment