KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Maggotty High School in St Elizabeth has been plunged into mourning following the death of 16-year-old student Shemar Blackwood Tuesday night.

Shemar was shot in the head by gunmen during a robbery at Huntley Castle district in the parish.

Speaking with OBSERVER ONLINE a short while ago, vice principal of the school Sean Graham said that the mood at the school at this time can be described as “traumatic”.

“It is very shocking…it has been a lot of tears and sadness [here] especially among students within his grade and a lot of teachers are mourning; they are also in total shock. It is a mixture of shock and disbelief mixed with sadness,” said Graham.

He said that Shemar was “fair academically, he was not an academically outstanding child but well behaved and actively participated in a lot of house activities and was quite respectful”.

The vice principal said that in-house guidance counsellors are providing counselling for students and the education ministry is expected to provide support.

“It has come to a point where as a society we really need to take stock and really have to begin to do some deep reflection. I don’t know if there is any other specie which destroys its future like we are doing now,” Graham said in a message to the Jamaican society.

He continued: “It’s like you’re eating up your children. It is sad that we as a school have to grapple with this. But not only us all the other institutions, the home, the church, the general community and other institutions, that are there to protect children.”

“We really have to sit down and deal with this” Graham insisted before adding “we cannot continue to kill each other and in particular our children because what we are really doing is shooting ourselves in the leg and destroying our future,” he said.

The vice principal added that Shemar’s death is the second loss to the St Elizabeth school by violence in recent times.

“In January we lost a student in a similar manner. A question we have to throw out there to the society is, what are we doing?”

On January 9 of this year the body of Asnell Coke was discovered with chop wounds to the head after he reportedly left home to catch shrimp with a friend.