EDITOR, The Tribune.

I’m fed up. How many times must my family and household be assaulted before I lose my mind and go rampaging across this country using my own gun? I have lived in what used to be called a relatively safe area (Danottage Estates) and my house has been robbed eight times since I have lived here.

On the very day that the police announced its many promotions, my mother and sister were held up at gunpoint in the driveway of our home. This, when only two months ago, the front door of my house was kicked in and the entire house ransacked and many items stolen. What next? It seems to me that home invasions, robberies and now armed robberies are commonplace in our country; it seems to me that criminals are not afraid of the law; it seems to me that common citizens must now be afraid just to live a decent ordinary life; it seems to me that our leaders are exhausted by the situation themselves; it seems to me that we have spun out of control. I hate to admit it, but it appears more and more that refusing the offer made to me to stay in the United States and teach music when I left my schooling years in Princeton, New Jersey, was a very bad idea indeed. I should have stayed, taken the job, got legal residence and brought my family over.

This is not a country where I wish my young nieces and nephews to reside. In fact I have advised them to find a home somewhere else and visit the beach when they feel the need.

I am exhausted and despondent that after working hard all her life as a single parent, my mother can’t enjoy retirement in her own home without fear of robbery or death; I feel despondent and depressed because I feel the need to advise my nieces and nephews to live in a country other than the one of their birth; I feel despondent and depressed because I have become a prisoner in my home; I feel despondent and depressed because I have since turned away offers for friends to visit because I don’t feel it’s a safe place for them to visit. I’m despondent and depressed that after serious financial investments in outdoor lights, alarms systems, powered gates, etc, I still can’t seem to protect my family ... I guess the next move is to get a gun.

This is what I have come to – a Christian man willing to kill another!

This week as I reflect on my friend and former singing chorister Andre Cartwright, who lost his life protecting his family, I am more than aware that my situation today could have been worse than just an armed robbery (can you imagine I am grateful for “just an armed robbery?”) I could be in the position of the Cartwright family or the Davis family who are deeply grieved at the death of a relative. For that I thank God that the lives of my sister and mother were spared.

I’m fed up, despondent and depressed.

ADRIAN A W 
ARCHER

Nassau,

October 30, 2014.