Kwayana raises 'plenty licks' theory
By Courtney Jones
As the inhabitants of Buxton continue to reel from the shock of Wednesday morning's multiple killing by one of its sons, village elder and politician, Eusi Kwayana, has commented that the tragedy brings starkly into focus the whole issue of how children are raised. Kwayana stated that he had heard reports of the uncontrollable temper and cruelty displayed by multiple killer, Raul Herod, but added that the question was what was responsible for this behaviour. Kwayana had earlier told Stabroek News that he had not yet spoken to the surviving members of the Herod family, and, as such, felt that it was not fitting to make any comment on the specific tragedy. "The closest relatives are still around and they have feelings of their own," Kwayana stressed. But he attributed the actions of Herod, who killed seven members of his family in a fit of blind rage before burning down the family house and killing himself on "the influences on his life..." "It is becoming a massive problem because how are we going to deal wih all these influences on the lives of particularly young people?" Kwayana asked. "One of the things we have to look at is the development of children and whether a lot of us have been using the right method to help them develop in a useful way in this modern society." He observed that Herod was not a vagrant and he had not heard the killer being connected with drugs. But even though a person might appear to be "normal" and a person of discipline, as Herod was described by his employers, there was something in his psyche that lacked discipline. According to Kwayana, there needs to be insights into whether he was brought up with "plenty licks," since, invariably, when children are brought up in that way they end up giving "plenty licks". Some neighbours had spoken about a less than loving relationship between Herod and his grandmother Angela and mother Shirley in his young days. "Licks are given with a weapon which is most popular and handy and in this case Herod carried a gun," Kwayana said. Herod, an operations supervisor at the security firm Securicor, used a .32 Taurus automatic pistol, a company issue, to blast six members of his family to death. "The gun is a new toy these days. The police are using it a lot as a new toy and whoever has a chance is using it as a toy and that is certainly part of the problem we face not only in Buxton but throughout Guyana," Kwayana said. He opined that re-examination of the old saying, "spare the rod and spoil the child," was needed. He said that his experience as a teacher had taught him that the "rod" is a totally useless instrument when it comes to enforcing discipline. "So I am saying that this whole unfortunate incident has a cause and an origin." Kwayana noted that respect for elders in the village and in the wider society had broken down, as indeed had the respect older persons have for the young, and noted that this might have been part of the problem that led to the tragedy. "The more that I read in the newspapers, I have not spoken to the family as yet... the more I feel that there were deep family problems," Kwayana said.
Jermaine Herod, the little boy who survived Wednesday's murders\sucide\arson in Buxton, is slowly recovering from his ordeal. Herod had been hospitalised on Wednesday after being shot in the jaw by his father, Raul Herod, now deceased. Before ending his own life in the family home that had been set on fire by his own hand, Herod had also taken the lives of several relatives, including his 97-year-old grandmother, Angela Herod; his mother, Shirley Cole-Herod and her sister, Patricia Harris and four children, among them two of Herod's offspring. When Stabroek News visited him in the Children's ward of the Public Hospital, Georgetown yesterday, the nine-year-old was alert and sitting up in the lap of one of several well-wishers who have paid him frequent visits since the tragedy. His visitors confirmed that he was in good spirits and was taking fluids. He has shown definite signs of improvement from the past two days of his hospitalisation, when he mostly slept. Herod, speaking through a swollen jaw in which the .32 Taurus slug his father fired at him is believed to be still lodged, indicated that he was feeling no pain yesterday. An IV tube which had been sustaining him since the beginning of his hospitalisation had been removed and the little boy was moving around his bedside. Stabroek News understands that the surgery to remove the bullet will be performed when it is ascertained that he is stable enough to undergo the operation. 
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