‘Mommy, them want me turn cruff”

BICKERSTETH, St James — The lament of a 10-year-old student struck a chord with residents Thursday after thieves ransacked Bickersteth Primary and Infant School, making off with computers and tuck shop supplies in the fifth break-in there in just seven years. “Mommy, them people yah want me turn cruff,” was how the boy reacted to news of the break-in, his mother told the Jamaica Observer. The mother, who asked not be named, said her son, a grade five student, cried on the verandah of their house as he was told that school would be closed on Thursday and Friday because of the crime.

“I told him ‘Son, you nah turn cruff, we will stand with you’,” she related to the Observer. Cruff is a Jamaican colloquial term for individuals who are deemed lazy, lack ambition, or have poor social etiquette. The mother is among parents and residents who are now expressing anguish over the situation at the school.

“I usually send him out before me, but he has to stay home with his sister today,” the distraught mother said. A bent grill shows how thieves entered the Bickersteth Primary and Infant School tuck shop early Thursday morning. On Thursday morning, school administrators turned up to see windows and doors at the school pried open and items missing.

“They ripped the grill out the wall, broke the window and came in,” Principal Robert Gordon said. “Not even [Hurricane] Melissa did a job like that, the place was ransacked.” Category 5 Melissa left widespread destruction across western and south-western parishes last October. Principal Gordon said Thursday’s early morning break-in was the fifth in seven years.

“Last year, this time, they broke into the school twice, but that individual was held. We lost some equipment as well — computers and food items,” Gordon said. He speculated that the robbery may be connected with others committed in western Jamaica in recent times.

Workmen replace damaged windows at Bickersteth Primary and Infant School on Thursday following the robbery. “Based on what is happening now and the series of schools — Bogue Hill, Retrieve, Anchovy — it seems like they are just going through and hitting schools in a series,” Gordon said. A man who gave his name as Anglin, described the break-in as disheartening.