By Mark DaCosta- A quarrel between two women over noise in a shared Berbice home ended on Friday night with a father of three dead and a neighbour in police custody. The killing shows how ordinary friction in our country can turn lethal. It also echoes the warnings of former President David Granger, who called interpersonal violence a national concern that laws alone cannot cure.
Police in Regional Division Six say Vernon Morgan, 44, a labourer of Stanleytown, New Amsterdam, lived on the ground floor of a two-storey building with his 29-year-old wife and their three children. A 55-year-old seaman and his wife occupied the flat above. Earlier that day the two women had reportedly argued over disturbances from the upper flat. Mrs Morgan is said to have left with the children and later returned.
At about 19:20hrs, investigators say, the dispute passed to the men. A scuffle allegedly turned into an attack with a knife and a cutlass, leaving Morgan wounded on his abdomen, back and elsewhere. He was rushed to the New Amsterdam Regional Hospital but died while receiving treatment. His body awaits a post-mortem examination. The suspect was arrested and is assisting with investigations. No charge has been reported, and he remains presumed innocent.
What makes the case so troubling is its ordinariness. There is no suggestion of a gang feud or a contract killing. A disagreement of the kind neighbours in crowded, shared housing have always had ended in a family’s ruin, and that is the pattern Mr Granger described. As president, he called interpersonal violence a national crisis requiring all stakeholders to act together, not government or NGOs alone. He also voiced alarm at the ferocity of such attacks, including repeated stabbing after a victim was clearly gravely hurt.
He traced the problem to history. Speaking in 2016, he said it would take time to undo decades of a culture of criminal violence, and he linked it to the “secondary impact” of the killings Guyanese witnessed in the 2000s. He noted that police received 39,566 domestic violence reports between 2005 and 2014, more than ten every day. Violence, he suggested, had migrated from the street into the home.
Granger doubted that legislation alone would work. In his words, “It matters little how many laws are enacted” if the underlying causes go unaddressed. He urged early intervention, especially among children and young people, and cooperation with civil society. He also pointed to the need to examine the culture of young people and what happens in schools.
The Stanleytown tragedy invites uncomfortable questions. Do families sharing a building have any means of settling disputes before they turn physical? Do village leaders and community policing groups have the skills to mediate? How many children, including the three who lived in that lower flat, are growing up believing a blade is an acceptable answer to a grievance? These are questions of prevention, and prevention depends on investment in schools, counselling and conflict-resolution training. Prosecution matters, but it comes only after the harm is done.
The police investigation must now run its course, and the courts will decide guilt or innocence. Meanwhile, a wife and three children have lost a husband and father over what began as a complaint about noise. Our nation will keep burying people like Mr Morgan until restraint and peaceful dispute resolution are taught early, practised at home and reinforced in the community.
