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Ardenne principal slams cops for shooting on compound
published: Wednesday | June 27, 2007
Esther Tyson (right), principal of Ardenne High School, St. Andrew, in discussion with a police officer, following a shooting incident, which took place on the school compound, yesterday. - Junior Dowie/Staff Photographer
Petrina Francis, Staff Reporter
Esther Tyson, principal of Ardenne High School, St. Andrew, yesterday condemned police personnel who have been accused of injuring a student of Covenant Academy Preparatory and shooting a man believed to be of unsound mind, on the school compound.
Corporal Oneil Patterson of the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN) said about 2:30 p.m., the man was in the vicinity of the school throwing stones at a group of Ardenne students when a police patrol car, which was in the area, signalled him to stop.
Cpl. Patterson said the man then began to throw stones at the police. The police, he said, accosted the man, who attempted to disarm one of the lawmen.
The CCN spokesman did not provide further details, but Mrs. Tyson said she was told that the man ran on to the compound and the police chased after him, fired a shot, which resulted in injury to the 11-year-old student who was in a bus that had gone to the school compound to pick up some students from Ardenne High.
The man then ran into the staffroom where he was shot by the police. This was in full view of teachers, one of whom went into shock and had to be taken to hospital.
"We are going to have to deal with this as a school because I consider it really very distressing that this type of thing could take place. It is a mad man; he was not armed as far as eyewitnesses could see, yet shooting took place in my staff room. As far as I am concerned, it is not acceptable because the man was not armed," an obviously shaken Mrs. Tyson told reporters yesterday.
Alumni present
The incident took place as the institution was having its homecoming week celebrations. Alumni from Canada and the United States, among other countries, were on the compound.
"I am not sure that it is responsible to fire a gun on a school compound. It is bad policing and may be an issue of training. When you endanger so many other persons, somebody should be held accountable," Alvin Layne, member of the Ardenne Alumni Association, Washington, D.C., chapter told The Gleaner.
"The students were traumatised and were running all over the place and screaming," said Rosalee Bogle, one of the guidance counsellors at the school. She indicated that the school would be arranging counselling sessions for students when they returned to school on Friday.
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published: Wednesday | June 27, 2007
Esther Tyson (right), principal of Ardenne High School, St. Andrew, in discussion with a police officer, following a shooting incident, which took place on the school compound, yesterday. - Junior Dowie/Staff Photographer
Petrina Francis, Staff Reporter
Esther Tyson, principal of Ardenne High School, St. Andrew, yesterday condemned police personnel who have been accused of injuring a student of Covenant Academy Preparatory and shooting a man believed to be of unsound mind, on the school compound.
Corporal Oneil Patterson of the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN) said about 2:30 p.m., the man was in the vicinity of the school throwing stones at a group of Ardenne students when a police patrol car, which was in the area, signalled him to stop.
Cpl. Patterson said the man then began to throw stones at the police. The police, he said, accosted the man, who attempted to disarm one of the lawmen.
The CCN spokesman did not provide further details, but Mrs. Tyson said she was told that the man ran on to the compound and the police chased after him, fired a shot, which resulted in injury to the 11-year-old student who was in a bus that had gone to the school compound to pick up some students from Ardenne High.
The man then ran into the staffroom where he was shot by the police. This was in full view of teachers, one of whom went into shock and had to be taken to hospital.
"We are going to have to deal with this as a school because I consider it really very distressing that this type of thing could take place. It is a mad man; he was not armed as far as eyewitnesses could see, yet shooting took place in my staff room. As far as I am concerned, it is not acceptable because the man was not armed," an obviously shaken Mrs. Tyson told reporters yesterday.
Alumni present
The incident took place as the institution was having its homecoming week celebrations. Alumni from Canada and the United States, among other countries, were on the compound.
"I am not sure that it is responsible to fire a gun on a school compound. It is bad policing and may be an issue of training. When you endanger so many other persons, somebody should be held accountable," Alvin Layne, member of the Ardenne Alumni Association, Washington, D.C., chapter told The Gleaner.
"The students were traumatised and were running all over the place and screaming," said Rosalee Bogle, one of the guidance counsellors at the school. She indicated that the school would be arranging counselling sessions for students when they returned to school on Friday.
[email protected]