Who says Trinidadian children are unwanted? Right this minute, half our police force is out looking for Trinidad’s Most Wanted Child, whichever ten- or 11- or 14- or 15-year-old murderer killed nine-year-old Jadel Holder and his 15-year-old brother, Jamal Braithwaite; and, whatever else you might say about whoever put a nine-year-old child to lie face down in his own home and put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger, Jadel Holder’s killers clearly really, really wanted him; even if they only wanted him dead.
And there’s every reason to believe—or at least one newspaper story to base any wildly invented allegation on—that the killer could well have been another child. No one should believe everything you read but we all want to believe this one: we would prefer it to be another child. It makes it easier on us, as adults; it’s like how we pretend it’s less barbaric, a more minor murder, somehow, if someone is shot dead in their own driveway or chopped to pieces in their own bed if we find out it’s the husband or wife who ordered the hit. (Don’t think about the actual “ordering the hit”; that doesn’t scan.)
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