Dennis Watson

Bermuda's next "Big Conversation" needs to be about the youth and changing the community, according to a gang expert.

Dennis Watson, who is Bermudian, and the president and CEO of The National Black Youth Leadership Council and as chairman of the National Youth and Gang Violence Task Force, spoke yesterday after an 18-year-old was stabbed to death this weekend.

On Saturday night a group of youths were arrested in the Sandys area hours after the death of Kellon Dill and the theft of his gold chain.

As of press time last night nobody had been charged. Police have warned that people are increasingly being targeted by gangs attempting to steal their jewellery.

And yesterday, Mr. Watson said that parents needed to take back their homes and the community needed to worry about thefts of chains turning into thefts of phones and other items.

He said: "I am saddened by the recent death, my condolences go out to the family. Bermuda is a close knit society and my mother and father, my uncle and others did not let me get away with murder.

"I got spoken too and I got caned, all those things kept me alive. The parents have fallen down on the job and allowed the children to do what they like.

"We need to give our youth and our black males a good talking to. They need to take back the home and the community.

"This must replace the big conversation. The big conversation needs to be to change your own house, to change your neighbourhood.

"The chickens have come home to roost and materialism will not fill the spiritual void that's missing."

And he warned that one more murder could bring the international media to Bermuda and threaten our tourist dollars by giving the Island a bad name.

The Island has already experienced four murders in the past eight months starting on Boxing Day last year when Aquil Richardson was gunned down while sitting on a wall, and in April this year Matthew Clarke was stabbed to death in his bedroom.

Then in June, 14-year-old Rhiana Moore was found dead in the mangroves of Blue Hole Hill nature reserve in Hamilton Parish.

The recent death, according to Police, was part of an increasing trend of stealing chains and Mr. Watson said that now the youth in the United States were incarcerated for stealing I-Phones.

He added: "It could come to Bermuda. That's the new thing going on now from elementary to middle schools. These are not problems of Bermuda but problems of the media on BET and MTV.

"Bermuda does not have gangs, we have a small clique who have a gang mentality."

And Mr. Watson, who credits at least 500 to 750 males he can name in an instant who were involved in his life and keeping him on track, has called for a summit.

He added: "We need a National Emergency Summit immediately to address the issues focusing the black Bermudian male and the Bermuda youth in general."

And Mr. Watson, who supports the work that the Premier Ewart Brown and Public Safety Minister David Burch and David Bascome, head of the Hope for Life anti-gang initiative, are doing to address the problem, said he would be more than happy to visit the Island to speak to the youth.

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