The leadership and members of the Take Over Tent (TOT) wishes to express our heartfelt condolences to the mother, children and family of Meindad “RATCHIE” Raggie. Who was shot dead in Castries on Saturday night after work.
Ritchie joined the Take Over Tent in 2003. He has had a reasonable level of success as a competitor in the Sir Simons Secondary School Calypso competition like Alpha, before choosing the Take Over Tent as the vehicle for his foray into the national competition. He was a promising talent, who was prepared to invest the time and effort necessary to achieve his goals; and was only now beginning to blossom as a singer /songwriter. He was an individual who listened to his critic and was always willing to take the challenge set before him. In his first year he was voted most promising newcomer for TOT and in 2008 was again awarded the most improved Calypsonian. His death is as shocking as it is tragic.
We expend condolences to his mother Lydia, father Ratchie (Senior), his children Leah, Leanna and Kayla, his eight brothers and one sister.
Ratchie’s death is a cruel reminder to us all that none of us are safe while angry, frustrated and armed youth are allowed to roam the streets and byways of our communities with apparent impunity. Criminals and delinquents must be made uncomfortable. The current program of acquiescence epitomized by the “Peace and Love Initiative” and the “Hope Project” that hands out hundreds of thousands of dollars to known thugs and deviants without and requirement to recant, acknowledge and or confess their crimes only legitimizes their hooliganism without any attempt to reform or rehabilitate.
The leadership and members of the Take Over Tent call on the powers responsible for public safety and national security to:
- Immediately embark on a vigorous and continuous program of criminal profiling and random searches to discover and retrieve the illegal fire arms that are now in the hands of street thugs in our ghettos and inner city areas.
- To investigate and implement confidence building and identity protection measures that will promote and encourage public cooperation in the crime fighting efforts.
- Declare and act on a zero tolerance on all types of crime which should include but not be limited to Loitering, Loud Music in residential and public areas and on moving vehicles, littering, verifications of driver’s licenses, vehicle ownerships, vehicle tints and number plates, unlawful parking, dangerous driving and driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, commercial squatting and illegal vending especially regarding alcohol and other narcotic substances such as hemp cigarettes.
These effort should not be limited to the city streets, but to the highways, village roads and community byways. Nor should they be pursued in periodic cycles that allow for respite and the reemergence and or re-strategizing on the part of the criminal element. The situation is grave and it requires bold and resolute action and the part of those charged with that responsibility. We cannot continue to condemn the nation to a life of fear on account of a few deviants among us.
On behalf of Management and Members of the Take Over Tent.
