Wednesday, 14 June 2023 11:39

Entertainers protest for slain Danielle - but wider public fails to show support

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Singer Tanya Stephens (centre) and media personality Carlene "Dancehall Queen" Smith (right)join in the demonstration at Emancipation Park on Tuesday. Singer Tanya Stephens (centre) and media personality Carlene "Dancehall Queen" Smith (right)join in the demonstration at Emancipation Park on Tuesday.

In the wake of the recent death of eight year old Danielle Rowe, a few members of the entertainment fraternity gathered at Emancipation Park, Tuesday afternoon, to express their distress at the gruesome nature of the killing.

Danielle, a former student of Braeton Primary and Infant School, was abducted from the Portmore institution last week, then was thrown from a motor vehicle on Roosevelt Avenue after her throat had been slashed. She later died at hospital.

The demonstrators urged the perpetrators to turn themselves in to the authorities.

The police, earlier on Tuesday, released on social media a computer-enhanced image of a woman of interest said to be connected with the incident.

Reports are that Danielle is the eighth child murdered in Jamaica this year and the entertainers were out in the Corporate Area pleading for Jamaicans to rise up and take a stand.

Carlene Smith, more popularly known as Dancehall Queen Carlene, said that she wants Jamaicans to stop ignoring these issues and not wait any longer to start taking action against these gruesome acts.

"This is the eighth child for the year! Are we going to wait 'til it reach 800, 80, or even eight more? We are here supporting her [Danielle]; she has not gone in vain. We are trying to hope that it does not happen to another child. Everybody knows somebody; and who did this, somebody knows them. Please come forth, come forward! I am pleading to Jamaica, don't mek wi country go down this road," Smith said.

She also expressed displeasure at the number of individuals who turned up at the protest and encouraged Jamaicans to take this issue more seriously.

"What are we doing about this, Jamaica? Are we supposed to lay down and play dead because it has nothing to do with you? I see unnu protest and block road for less important things than this, and today only a handful of us are here," she said of the protest which was largely coordinated online.

DAngel Razor B protest

Dancehall artistes D'Angel (centre) and Razor B (right) engage another attendee at the public protest near Emancipation Park.

Dancehall artiste Razor B also expressed his frustration with the turnout:

"When an eight-year-old can be brutally murdered like that, and we seh we out a Emancipation Park a protest peacefully, why over 100,000 people nuh out yah?" he asked while urging Jamaicans to do better regarding serious matters that are affecting the country.

For her part, Michelle Downer, stage name D'Angel, joined protestors and offered sympathies to the mother of murdered child. She said that, being a mother herself, she is concerned about the safety of Jamaican women and children.

"They have to protect our children more. A lot of times I am on the road and I see children coming from school, some likkle babies walking by themselves, and I am wondering how this happen? Isn't there somebody like a caregiver, a family member, or somebody in the community that can pick them up? We have to be more vigilant with our kids. We have to be there for them more." the entertainer said.

"I know that we, as mothers, have to work to provide for our children, so, in most cases, we are not there. However, somebody have to be there to get them, because sometimes they are strolling by themselves, going home, and then they get abducted," she added.

D'Angel said she was heartbroken at news that a woman is a person of interest in young Danielle's murder, adding that she hopes that the police are successful in nabbing those responsible.