| There continues to be furious responses in Barbados to the brutal murder of Guyanese Brenda Belle, nee Duncan-Taylor, with police and hospital administrators being called to task.As Acting Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mark Thompson, said his officers will investigate whether there were deficiencies in handling the matter, two social groups have reacted angrily demanding that administrators of the island’s main hospital, Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH),Cheap Basketball Jerseys, explain why law enforcement or other relevant personnel were not alerted when this woman was treated for a wound from an obviously violent attack.Guyanese Brenda BellePrior to being hunted down and chopped to death, allegedly by her estranged husband on Tuesday, May 30, Brenda, on Saturday May 27, suffered a cut to her arm during an altercation with the knife-wielding man at a Fairchild Street downtown hangout spot, popular among Guyanese.Close friends have complained that upon reporting the matter to police, she was sent to get a medical certificate of the injury, and there was no known attempt by law officers to bring the man in for questioning. She sought and received treatment at QEH.On Tuesday evening the man attacked Brenda with a cutlass and chopped her to death outside the house of a friend she was visiting. Her house at another location was subsequently burnt down and police suspect the two incidents might be related.Allan Belle, who was married to Brenda for some 12 years, was hospitalised that evening after he drank a poisonous substance. He remains under police guard in hospital.“Clearly something is fundamentally wrong with this scenario. It therefore seems – from what details we have about this matter – that the system failed Brenda Belle in a most shameful manner,” read part of a statement from activist organization, ‘September 3rd Foundation’.That organization, comprising concerned citizens, was established in memory of six women – one Guyanese among them – who were burned to death on September 3, 2010, when one of two robbers of a Bridgetown clothing store threw a Molotov cocktail behind him when escaping, setting the place ablaze. That person is now serving six life sentences in prison.“The duty of all us citizens of Barbados is to raise our collective voices in denunciation of this inexcusable failure of the system to protect Brenda Belle, and demand reforms,” the foundation stated.National Organization of Women President, Marva Rice-Bowen, turned on a premiere Barbados men’s social organization, demanding that it speaks out against this and other acts of violence against women.“I am calling on MESA (Men’s Educational Support Association) to denounce domestic violence … We need MESA to join other organizations in fighting to end this serious problem in our society,” she said.In apologizing to family members of Brenda Belle for a failing of the authorities, September 3rd Foundation Coordinator, David Comissiong, questioned what is the procedure when domestic violence is reported to the authorities.“When a woman reports to the Accident and Emergency Department of the QEH suffering stab wounds or other physical injuries inflicted by a male, is the matter automatically reported to the police or to a specially designated social worker, or to a domestic violence victim protection institution,” asked Comissiong, an attorney and human rights activist.Results of a 2009 report on domestic violence conducted by reputable Caribbean research and public polling organization, CADRES, found that 21 percent of murders between 2000 and 2007 in Barbados were the result of domestic violence. “It is noteworthy that all of those who were killed in that time period were women,” Rice-Bowen said. |
