Jermaine ‘Skinny’ Charles was laid to rest in Agricola before a large, sentimental home crowd yesterday, which also would have been his 23rd birthday.
His send off at the Penial Wesleyan Tabernacle Church, Water Street Agricola, which got underway around 4 pm following a lengthy viewing at his mother’s residence was punctuated with tears, a few frank comments about his life, some ‘throw-downs’ and a strong charge to Agricola youths to learn from his mistakes.
No one was allowed to even so much as whisper any of those mistakes but a young lad sitting a little distance away from the door at the church likely had no idea. The boy briefly commented that Charles broke out of jail in “hero style” and drew cold, long stares until he smiled and said that Charles was his “solider”.
Charles, a multiple murder accused and prison escapee, was gunned down along with Rondel ‘Fineman’ Rawlins during a shoot out with members of the Joint Services in Kuru Kururu last Thursday. One of their associates, Seon Grant was killed several hours earlier at a shack in Timehri.
With the sun beating down on them and police shadowing their movements Agricola residents turned out in vast numbers to pay respect to Charles who they referred to as “we own”- some lamenting his demise as they strolled to Brutus Street home for an earlier viewing.
Charles lay in his coffin clothed in cream pants and matching long sleeve shirt with a rag tucked in his left front pocket. He wore a white headband and cap. A flag bearing the image of a lion was resting alongside the box. The flag later draped the box when Charles was taken away for burial deeper in the village.
Using Charles’s life, which many said he lived doing things his way and the image of his lifeless body lying in the coffin for all to see, particularly the Agricola youths who turned out, calls were made for different paths to be taken and for mothers to show their sons and daughters what a life in Christ was like.
‘Protect the youths’
Declaring that they were there to celebrate his life and not his deeds, the congregation remembered Charles as the little boy who grew up in Agricola often walking around shirtless. He went to school and later acquired some skills at a technical city school before finding odd jobs then no jobs at all.
He left the village, according to those who spoke, but his roots were there; his mother, family and friends were there. His mother sat quietly throughout the service holding a younger one who many repeatedly begged her to protect.
“Protect our youths and let them walk in your path,” a woman said drawing resounding shouts of approval from the crowd.
The day, though focused on Charles, turned into a sermon about the future of the young men in Agricola and concern for the young women, many of whom, turned out to say tearful goodbyes to Charles.
Women were asked to steer their boys in the right direction and to keep them away from the gun barrel and out of prison, to show them God and to see that they kept in line, and to say a prayer for the village was constantly being looked upon in the wrong light.
Even as the church service was in progress there was confrontation between police officers and scores of mourners who chose to pay their last respects from the road way.
Arrests
Police in plain clothes and uniform, some armed to the teeth, circled the entire village while the body was still at Charles’s Brutus Street home and as the service commenced some of them parked on both sides of the church some distance away. Some of the law men, with big guns, walked through the large crowd in front of the church and this saw them being taunted by the mostly women who were on the road. The crowd became riled after the law men apprehended two young men and took them to their vehicles.
Stabroek News observed two police officers with guns approach a teenager who was dressed in black and standing on a bridge next door to the church. They told the young man to place his hands in the air and then proceeded to search him. With his hands still in the air, they ordered him to their vehicle, which was some distance away and placed him inside. After talking to the young man even as the taunting got louder the police finally released him and he was ordered into the church by the women. Another young man suffered the same fate but after he was released, he immediately left the area.
As the two men were being interrogated by the police, the women on the road quickly ordered the young men among them to go into the church. “Go into the church. You come to the funeral you all go in. No matter wah condition you all in God don’t mind. You see wah happening to them,” one woman shouted even as the young men heeded their instruction and quickly scampered into the church.
“Look how Skinny gat allyu, you all guarding he body and all,” one woman told the lawmen.
Another woman asked, “Is mo bullets you all wan put in he body?”
“Is you all get dem young man like how dem deh. Look wah you all doing to he and he ent do nothing,” another one shouted as the police took away the youngster in black.
Another woman proceeded to bend over and shake her rare end at the police officers much to the amusement of her friends.
Back in church Pastor Suffrien asked persons who were close to the dead man to pay tribute to him and the first person who got up was a woman who identified herself as his aunt. She said many might condemn her nephew but he was dead now and she was certain that he “made peace with God before he dead.”
‘Who are their sustainers?’
Another woman, who said she did not know Skinny but knew his brother, asked those without sin to cast the first stone. “I am not here to justify anything, Skinny did what he did,” she said, adding that they should ask themselves why their young men were taking such paths. “We need to ask who are their sustainers? And we need to understand that it is the social, moral and political systems that have them like that,” she said.
Another woman, who is a pastor in the area, recalled that Skinny grew up opposite her and she always used to tell him not to leave his home without a shirt. She told the congregation that they needed to pray for “our sons, is three from Agricola one time and we need to pray for them even if you don’t have sons.”
Skinny, Grant and Rawlins all grew up in Agricola.
As the last viewing of the body in church concluded, one young woman created a ruckus as she screamed and threw herself on the floor. And even as she screamed Skinny’s mother was observed comforting her with not a tear in her eyes.
As the tributes were being made many of the persons told the young man’s mother to stay strong for her other two sons. The woman shared out programmes for the funeral service after which she sat through the service at the front of the church dry-eyed.
And as the coffin was about to be closed, one little girl in the arms of a woman was overheard asking, “Is who kill Jermaine? Is why Jermaine deh suh?” as she pointed to his body in the coffin.
Skinny’s coffin was carried from the church by six young men and taken to the burial ground not far away, with a large crowd following.
