Woman Stabs Man to Death

Woman stabs man to death

By VASHTEE ACHIBAR 

Wednesday, February 27 2013

GRIEVING relatives of Akins Tannis, 31, who was stabbed to death by a woman on Monday night, yesterday demanded justice. Speaking at the family’s Ste Madeleine home, relatives insisted that the real story is not being told and Akins was being painted as the aggressor while his killer, is being made to look like the victim. A 26-year-old woman is in custody assisting police in their investigations.

Relatives said that the woman who stabbed Akins, father of a five-year-old girl, was the aggressor who had a history of quarrels with him and recently, smashed his cellphone at their home because he was speaking to his daughter’s mother.

San Fernando police were called to Chishlon Street off Chacon Street San Fernando after receiving a report that a man was stabbed. Relatives of the woman told police that Akins and the woman were arguing and during a struggle, she grabbed a knife and stabbed him once in the neck.

Police said that Akins went to the home of the woman at 10.30 pm on Monday and an hour later he was stabbed. Akins was rushed to the San Fernando General Hospital where he died three hours later.

WPC Knight and Constable Ogunsheye of the San Fernando Police Station went to the scene and later detained the young woman. A party of officers from the Southern Homicide Investigations Bureau led by Insp Noel visited the scene along with officers of the Crime Scenes Unit.

Akins’ older brother Kirby Kern Tannis, 34, said his brother was at home with him when sometime after 9 pm, he (the deceased) received a call from a woman asking if he was was still passing by her. Tannis said his brother soon left. He also claimed that his brother and that woman regularly argued with each other.

Tannis said that at 2.14 am yesterday, hospital officials called the family informing them that Akins had been stabbed. With tears in his eyes, Tannis said that when he and other relatives rushed over to the hospital, his brother was already dead.

“There is a big stab wound to the neck, the doctor said the knife severed an artery and he lost a lot of blood. I want the truth. I am hearing so many different versions of what happened. Above all, I want justice for my brother. He was a very quiet person. He was a good brother. He was a very neat person,” Tannis cried.

Akins’ uncle, Eric Tannis wept yesterday as he spoke about his newphew. “We were close, he and I. He was my sister’s son and I loved him as if he were mine,” Tannis said. He said that shortly before he got the news that Akins was dead, he (Eric) saw a dead butterfly on his (the victim) bed.

“It was a sign. He was real cool. That woman gone and kill my sister’s child,” Tannis cried.

Akins’ mother and his two sisters, who live in the United States, are expected in the country later this week with the funeral set for next week. PC Ramkumar is investigating.

Source: http://www.newsday.co.tt/crime_and_court/0,174082.html

Children are Impacted by Domestic Violence

 

 

Children seeing ‘ghost’ of dead mom

Published:  Friday, February 15, 2013

Radhica Sookraj

PHOTO: KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Visions of their dead mother continue to haunt Nicholas and Nicolette Rampersad, days after they witnessed a relative strangle her with his bare hands at their Penal home. The children, aged eight and nine, respectively, are in desperate need of psychological counselling as they are “seeing the ghost” of Stella Rampersad, 30, walking about their Moolchand Trace, Penal Rock Road, home.

They have been unable to eat or sleep since Rampersad was beaten and strangled around 6 pm on Friday. Their six-week-old baby step-sister Rianna Thakur was left lying in her crib when the woman was murdered. During an interview yesterday, the children’s grandmother Latchmin Rajpat, 60, said she was worried about her grandchildren who are yet to receive counselling. “The police told me that they will get counselling after the funeral but these children suffering so much,” Rajpat said. So deep is the children’s trauma that they are afraid to be by themselves.

“If I have to go by the bathroom, they following me and waiting outside the door. They telling me that they scared,” Rajpat said. “He (Nicholas) tells me that mummy is standing there cleaning the house. He sees her sweeping, opening the toilet and washing his clothes.” Rajpat said the children have become withdrawn and were crying incessantly. They have also started showing “animosity” towards the six-week-old baby, Rajpat said. “I heard them telling the little baby that their mother may have died but they still had their father and that Rianna’s (relative) killed their mother,” Rajpat said.

She noted that Rampersad started seeing the suspect secretly two years ago. She then left Nicholas and Nicolette and went to live with him at Debe. However, she never knew her daughter was being abused. Six months ago the couple moved back to Moolchand Trace. “I know they used to quarrel a lot but I did not think it would come to this,” Rajpat said. She explained that it will be difficult to care for Rianna but she was determined to do so. She expressed gratitude to Nicolette and Nicholas’ father Russel Rampersad who assists in caring for them.

Rampersad’s funeral is expected to take place today from 9 am. A 30-year-old Guyanese national is expected to be charged with her murder.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2013-02-15/children-seeing-%E2%80%98ghost%E2%80%99-dead-mom

Man Stabs Wife in Bar

 

Man stabs wife in bar

Thursday, February 14 2013

VIKASH PERAI was not too pleased when on Carnival Monday, he saw his common- law wife in a bar on Mucurapo Street, San Fernando.

There was an argument and a fight ensued. Both Perai and common-wife, Shaffina Mohammed, ended up at hospital and yesterday they found themselves before Deputy Chief Magistrate Mark Wellington, in San Fernando.

Perai, 44, was charged with stabbing Mohammed with a broken bottle.

Perai wore a large bandage across his forehead, which appeared to be smeared with blood, when he stood before the magistrate. Mohammed was seated with bandages on her left arm. Perai pleaded guilty to the charge.

Wellington asked Perai why he stabbed Mohammed with a bottle and Perai said, “Sir I didn’t.” But the magistrate informed him that his common-law wife had a four-centimetre laceration on her arm and a three-centimetre cut on her shoulder. He fined Perai $5,000 or 12 months hard labour.

Source: http://www.newsday.co.tt/crime_and_court/0,173408.html

Rihanna and Chris Brown

Rihanna and Chris Brown are proof that domestic violence is everyone’s business

Posted by Michelle Bernard on February 11, 2013 at 10:16 am

 

(Christopher Polk — Getty Images)

A few weeks after the 2009 Grammys, photos released of R&B soul singer Rihanna’s face after her then-boyfriend Chris Brown had assaulted her were explanation enough as to why she had not appeared at the Grammys just a few weeks earlier. She had been brutally assaulted by Brown.

In a November 2009 interview with Diane Sawyer, Rihanna told Sawyer that it takes “eight or nine” incidents of domestic violence before one leaves an abusive relationship. Moreover, she told Sawyer that “When I realized that my selfish decision for love could result into some young girl getting killed, I could not be easy with that part. I couldn’t be responsible … If Chris never hit me again, who’s to say that their boyfriend won’t … kill these girls”.  Rihanna told young girls, “”Don’t react off of love. F love.”

Conventional wisdom was that the relationship was over — Rihanna would become a role model to women around the world, and through her actions, would demonstrate that no man is worth it.

Fast forward three years.

In an August 2012 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Rihanna told Winfrey  that she had lost  her “best friend” (Brown) in one moment.  She said that “It was a weird, confusing space to be in, because as angry as I was … I just felt he made that mistake because he needed help. [And I wondered], who’s going to help him?” Rihanna continued, telling Winfrey that “No one’s going to say, ‘He needs help.’  Everybody’s going to say, ‘He’s a monster. Without looking at the source.’”

Three months later, in her seventh studio album, “Unapologetic,” Rihanna and Brown recorded a song together entitled “Nobody’s Business.”

In the Jan. 31 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, after officially reuniting with Brown, Rihanna told contributing editor Josh Eells, “I decided it was more important for me to be happy. I wasn’t going to let anybody’s opinion get in the way of that. Even if it’s a mistake, it’s my mistake. After being tormented for so many years, being angry and dark, I’d rather just live my truth and take the backlash. I can handle it.”

Then, last week, to the utter shock and dismay of men and women all over the world, Rihanna, blowing kisses at Brown, accompanied him to a probation hearing where prosecutors argued that he had failed to complete his 180 days of community labor, which he had agreed to after pleading guilty to felonious assault in 2009.

In part, the lyrics to “Nobody’s Business” provide that “It ain’t nobody’s business. It ain’t nobody’s business. You’ll always be mine. Sing it to the world. Always be my boy, always be my girl. Ain’t nobody’s business. Ain’t nobody’s business. Ain’t nobody’s business, but mine and my baby.”

But domestic violence, the propensity of some to accept it, its causes, and its aftermath is everyone’s business.

As a society, we must ask ourselves what is it that happens in the rearing of children in virtually every culture and at every socio-economic level that raises girls and boys who are willing to stay in, or go back to physically and/or verbally abusive relationships.

There are many reasons why women (and men) in abusive relationships don’t leave. Money (the lack thereof); children; child custody concerns; a lack of adequate protection through the criminal justice system; poverty and the possibility of homelessness are all issues that immediately come to mind.

But, what about the case of women of means who can leave and choose to stay? What about cases like Rihanna where one leaves an abusive relationship and then chooses to go back to it knowing full well that this self-bondage puts one at constant risk of physical and/or verbal abuse?

According to Tricia Bent-Goodley, a professor of Social Work at Howard University and author of “The Ultimate Betrayal: A Renewed Look at Intimate Partner Violence,” “What this story tells us is that domestic violence doesn’t discriminate and that it can occur no matter how wealthy you are, how beautiful you are or how smart you are.”

Moreover, Bent-Goodley states that “It is so much easier for us to focus on one individual – why doesn’t she just leave – it is much harder for us to focus on ourselves and our communities – what are the messages we send that keep women being abused in abusive relationships? Our silence and our own inability to champion this issue fosters a sense that domestic violence is not an issue. We need more courageous people to stand against domestic violence.”

Bent-Goodley asserts that what we see with Rihanna and Brown and in numerous incidents of domestic violence is not just one issue, but a combination of many factors. Stigma, not wanting to be associated with domestic violence, fear of losing social stature, cultural beliefs that physical abuse is a normal part of being in a relationship, and romanticizing what your relationship used to be versus what it actually is and whatever is actually going on internally with the individual who has been victimized that leads them to stay (or go back to an abuser), are just some of the many issues we must look at as a nation in order to halt this crime.

As an African-American woman myself, I couldn’t help but ask Bent-Goodley about the complicated issue of domestic violence in our communities. Bent-Goodley asserts that in the African-American community, one of the issues many black, female victims of domestic violence face is not wanting to put a black man at the mercy of the criminal justice system.

As Bent-Goodley told me, “While domestic violence impacts all communities, black women are further burdened with the fear of going to the police and the courts because they don’t want to turn black men over to the criminal justice system. They don’t want to bring shame to the community and they don’t want others to think negatively about them and about black men because they have the added dimension of racism and discrimination to contend with. It can be a crippling burden no matter your economic status.”

After watching Brown watching Rihanna’s performance at the Grammys last night, I couldn’t help but to ask once again what we can do to teach our daughters that no man is worth abuse?

According to Ludy Green, president and founder of Second Chance Employment Services, the first and only employment placement agency in the United States for domestic violence victims, “By helping our daughters understand that we do not need to depend on any man, we have the capacity to do whatever we wish or desire intellectually as well as physically. First, we have to be an example to our daughters to maintain relationships in the home characterized by mutual respect and affection.   No man is worthy to take away our peace of mind or distress us on a regular basis. Respect and understanding is key to a well-functioning relationship.”

In 1923, in “Any Woman’s Blues,” jazz legend Bessie Smith sang “Every woman in my fix is bound to feel blue too, cause I love my man better than I love myself … and if he don’t have me, he won’t have anybody else.” Maybe what we need to teach our daughters and sons is that not only is this everyone’s business, the key to happiness is loving yourself first.
 

Michelle D. Bernard is the president & CEO of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics & Public Policy.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2013/02/11/rihanna-and-chris-brown-are-proof-that-domestic-violence-is-everyones-business/

Woman’s Throat Slashed After Argument

Woman’s throat slashed after argument

Published:  Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Derek Achong

 

A 20-year-old woman remained warded in hospital after her throat was slashed during an argument with a man on Monday morning. According to reports, around 4 am on Monday, Renata Mitchell, of North Manzanilla Road, Manzanilla was in her bedroom when she had an argument with the 24-year-old man. 

Police said while they were arguing, the man became violent and took a knife from the kitchen. He then slashed the left side of Mitchell’s throat before running out of the house with the weapon. Mitchell was taken to the Sangre Grande District Hospital where she was treated. She was in a serious condition up to late yesterday.

Doctors told police  Mitchell was lucky to be alive as the slash wound missed several major blood vessels in her neck. Investigators were  searching for the man up to late yesterday.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2013-02-06/woman%E2%80%99s-throat-slashed-after-argument