Dear Source:
While we do have our share of crime, one would think we have the worst crime in the world with all the media hype. While I would love to see a crime free Virgin Islands, I would also like to see a crime free USA too.
On just about any given day anyone can turn on the television and watch unsolved crimes, cold cases, missing people, etc of crimes across the USA. In my travels to the mainland, I can't say how many states I have been in that I have passed huge posters on the highway with pictures of missing people, especially children. I have repeatedly seen stateside police say they don't give out all the information until they are more sure so the case won't be jeopardized. I have watched many cases in which the police never found the answers and many of which took years to solve.
The crime in our islands, are limited to certain types of crimes. We don't have the major serial murder crimes, pedophile crimes, the types of murders over insurance on another human being, etc. It's a rarity to say we ever had kidnapping crimes. We have certain drug crimes but not anywhere close to all the drug crimes taking place across the USA. We are not infested with meth labs. We only ever had one mass murder crime in our history a long time ago, none recent unlike the number of those that take place in schools and universities in the USA currently. We have never had terrorist crimes either or bombing crimes. We never had sniper crimes. Even racial crimes are very isolated incidents in comparison to the states. I could go on and on in comparison. Even with the crimes we do have, our islands are still safer than many places in the states are.
While I feel the pain for the Cockayne's loss of their son, I equally feel the same pain of every white, brown, and black mother and father whether here or on the mainland USA that has loss their child to a crime. I feel every crime should be given the same attention not only to certain types of people of color or finances. Every human life is as equally important. While the Cockayne's have used the media to condemn us for the same or worse things that do take place on the mainland USA, I hope the media attention does not jeopardize the case. If it does, I hope they take on the negative disadvantages of media as equally as they are using the media to their advantage. If the media affects this case negatively in any way, it is their responsibility. I doubt very much the town they live in is crime free and can't claim to have a pristine, faultless, police department that solves every crime immediately.
We don't know how many people were involved in the murder of their son, so far we have heard the possibility of two persons. There is at least an average of 99,998 other Virgin Islanders who did not kill their son. Is it right to use the media to condemn us all? If so, so much for American justice and innocent until proven guilty.
I do pray that justice does take place.
Carol Berry
St. Thomas
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