Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Christopher Nelson, KC, has deemed last Saturday’s homicide case as an act of self-defense in an incident which resulted in the demise of 46-year-old Odinga Thomas.
According to a statement from the Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF), investigations revealed that the deceased was reported to have wielded two cutlasses during the altercation in the Beausejour community, prompting the other party to defend himself.
Thomas received a fatal blow to the head with a cutlass during the incident and was admitted as a patient at the St. George’s General Hospital, where he succumbed to his injury moments later.
Several persons in the St George North-west constituency blamed the victim for taking action that resulted in his own death.
One close family member of the deceased said he was wrong in the conflict that arose over Thomas’ confrontation with the other man who was going about his business to sell bread.
He said: “The boy go and interfere with the fellah. If the man didn’t kill the man, the man would have killed the man with his own cutlass. The man (Thomas) stopped the van with the bread and he accustomed going and take the bread in the van and when the man spoke to him he went and take two cutlass.
“The man selling his bread and the man challenging the man, aggravating the man – every time the man going to sell bread, the man taking the man bread in the van. When the man talk to him he go and take two cutlass and he come back. The man that cut the man right – otherwise he would have been a dead man,” he told THE NEW TODAY.
Residents in Beausejour recall Thomas with a mix of sentiments, acknowledging his imperfections.
“He was not perfect” and “had a way about him but he will be greatly missed,” one resident said lamenting on his untimely passing.
The need for young men, in particular, to eschew violence and embrace dialogue as a means of resolving disputes was emphasised by another resident who had been deeply affected by the tragedy.
“To all young men out there Violence is not the best way out…it only makes things worse,” he warned.
Thomas’ death serves as a sobering reminder of the fragility of life and the repercussions of resorting to violence as a means of conflict resolution.