By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Deputy Chief Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

FRIENDS of murdered 15-year-old Anthony Smith yesterday told The Tribune they will retaliate against the murder of the teenager.

The threats came amid an ongoing gang and turf war that is affecting some junior and senior high school campuses in New Providence.

“I’ll slaughter them, see what I saying,” one boy aged 15 said yesterday as he stood outside the gates of C I Gibson Senior High School on Marathon Road.

“We (are) retaliating for our boy.

“Some riding mad a, and some riding (one) orda (gang),” another boy, 16, chimed in as he demonstrated various gang hand signs.

Another said: “That’s our boy man. That’s sad man. Yeah man I drop tears. I think it wasn’t called for. I mean that’s a lil n.

“Dis ain’t going down like that,” someone else in the group of about 10 boys, shouted.

Asked whether fighting was common at their school, the boys agreed, one of them saying: “We just had two fights today.” As the victim’s friends gave this newspaper a glimpse into the violence plaguing the country’s educational system, scores of students ran toward a rock fight, which erupted several feet from a nearby tyre shop.

Somewhere in the midst of the commotion was the school’s principal Herbert Oembler. He followed the crowd of students and seemed to make attempts to find out the cause of the disruption.

Mr Oembler was on the defensive and refused to answer any questions when he was asked about his campus’ apparent violence problem.

The Tribune canvassed students, whose identities have been withheld because they are minors, at C I Gibson and D W Davis yesterday, following Anthony Smith’s death on Tuesday night.

Anthony’s father Wellington on Wednesday said he was in many fights while attending both schools, adding that when his son was enrolled at C I Gibson he knew the boy would most likely die.

According to police, shortly after 8pm Tuesday Anthony was standing in front of a home on Greenwick Street off Prison Lane when a man in a dark coloured Honda pulled up and shot him before speeding off.

The teenager was pronounced dead shortly after his arrival at hospital.

Mr Smith said he believes “Tony” was targeted because of the many fights he got into at school, stemming from a “gang war” between boys from Mason’s Addition and Kemp Road. He admitted Anthony was “not perfect”, but said “the system” set his son up to fail, when the Ministry of Education sent him to a school in a neighbourhood with rivals.

The distraught father said he knew the minute his son enrolled in C I Gibson Senior High School he would most likely die. Because of this, Mr Smith said Anthony was intentionally pulled out of school after only attending for three days since September.

At D W Davis Junior High School, Principal Nicolette Brown admitted that at its peak several years ago, gang and turf wars on the campus were a serious problem.

However, she said, rebranding and a change of culture at the Wilton Street school has brought major changes.

Several students, who spoke to this newspaper, agreed that “the campus is safe” and there were virtually no fights.

She said: “We went on a campaign to actually change the culture here and at present we are rebranding the school. About three years or so ago we decided to make some major changes. We began, firstly, by changing the uniform of our school. Secondly we looked at the mascot, which was the pit bull, and we were not happy with the representation of the pit bull as the mascot for our school.

“While initially it might have had positive influences in terms of strength we began to look at it in a negative way and we wanted to change that. So we took on the shield with the crown and the sceptre as our mascot so we are no longer pit bulls, but we are royals.

“We began to speak positively to our students. We address them as prince and princess and over the three (or) four year period we began to see some major changes. Academics began to take off. Our students began to perform exceptionally well at the BJC level. We began to get passes inclusive of many A’s. Five A‘s, six A’s, seven A’s and most recently last year our top student was awarded eight A’s and one B. Our second highest student actually received 10 subjects – seven A’s and three B’s.

“It didn’t happen overnight but incrementally we began to see the school turn around. It is a combined effort of administrators, teachers, clerical staff (and) custodial staff. We call it collective efficacy because all of us are working together for the same goal and ultimately it is to enhance the overall lives and academic achievement.”

Ms Brown said administrators also recognise demographics play a major role on violence on school campuses.

“If you look at we are in the inner city surrounded by Mason’s Addition, Peardale, Wulff Road, Kemp Road, Culmersville and some times that mix in itself can create problems.

“We all know that there is a gang problem in our country in the schools, but we have worked feverishly on it here and I am confident in saying that we have pretty much stamped out the majority of it.

“While it may still exist it’s very minimal and does not affect the teaching and learning process at D W Davis,” Ms Brown said.

Police have no suspects in custody for this case.