Last week I received two video clips on my phone. Both showed a technical school in Kingston as the location of an event.

The first video showed two female students wrestling. Then one held the other in a vice-like grip, located the most vulnerable part of the body and, with great force, plunged what appeared to be a knife repeatedly into the carotid artery region. Eventually, someone dragged her away. Her blouse was covered with the blood of the other student, and reports are that, occasionally, she was seen laughing.

Rupture of the carotid arteries, which provide blood supply to the head and neck, results in massive haemorrhage leading to death within a matter of minutes in a third of cases. In addition, those who survive are frequently left handicapped.

The second video showed the lifeless, bloodied body of the victim.

Some years ago, I was travelling along Perkins Boulevard one morning. I saw a girl in school uniform standing at the bus stop. For the purpose of this account she will be called Mary. About three hours later, on my return, she was still there. I stopped and inquired. Mary said she was told by the school authorities not to return unless she was accompanied by her father. And, yes, she was prepared to allow me to take her to school if I told the principal I was her father. We worked on another story and set off to her school.

I was told that Mary was involved, in some way, with every conflict at the school. Finally, it was decided that she could no longer be accommodated. I begged. I gave assurances I was not sure I could keep. When I explained that I was associated with the Peace and Love in Society (PALS) programme, the principal decided she could return with certain conditions.

On our way to her home, I attempted to get acquainted. She did not live with her mother because “it was not convenient”. She claimed that she lived with her father. The home was on the gully’s bank on the other side of Perkins Boulevard. A man was standing outside, who she said was her father. He greeted me with a friendly smile and resumed what he was doing, seemingly unconcerned that his young daughter had turned up with a man who could be her grandfather. Nor did he show any interest when she invited me into their house. The house was a small, poorly constructed room with one tiny bed.

I picked her up the next morning to deal with certain matters at school. As she climbed into the car, a sharp, fearsome-looking “kitchen” knife protruded from her uniform. I asked for an explanation. She replied, “Oh, me and a girl have some problems at school.” I calmly invited her to list the various outcomes that could result from using that knife and say what would be the consequences — for her — of each outcome.

Then, exasperated, I asked, “How much time do you spend with your mother?” A wry smile creased her face, her eyelids narrowed, and she seemed to look in the distance for a while. Then she spoke to herself, “The last time I saw my mother was at a street dance a Half-Way-Tree.” She paused, then added, “That was two years, four months, and two days ago.” We finished the journey in silence. As she turned her back to step from the car, she paused. Without looking at me, she said, “Is two Jamaica wi have…and they are very different.” She walked away without saying goodbye, leaving the door open. It was later that I discovered that she had left the knife in the car.

One condition, that her grades had to improve, was surprisingly easy to accomplish. This girl was bright; she grasped concepts quickly. And, as her grades improved, the conflicts decreased. But, unfortunately, I lacked the time and other resources to continue to offer what this girl needed. For all practical purposes, she was an orphan.

About 18 months later she called to say she had graduated. We got together to prepare her resume. That was the last time I saw her.

About three years later I turned on my TV just in time to see a vaguely familiar face and name. It was the death and memorials programme. Approximately half an hour later, it clicked. I jumped in my car and raced to the gully bank across from Perkins Boulevard.

And, yes, it was Mary. Her body was found in the Greenwich Town area. I went to my “eyes and ears” in the Greenwich Town area. I was told that she was gang raped, beaten, and strangled by her boyfriend and his friends. Her body was then hauled across Marcus Garvey Avenue to the back of the fishing beach and dumped there. At the time the boyfriend was being sought by the police in connection with women he had killed in a bar and dumped their bodies in a gully in the area a week or two earlier.

The morning I first met Mary, I was on my way to some schools in the Spanish Town area. I met with teachers to discuss school conflict resolution strategies as part of the PALS programme. I was also testing a theory I had about looking at one’s eyes and shoulders to identify depression and stress. At one school I had made arrangements to talk to a class. While I was talking, many of them seemed to be exhibiting the signs I was looking for in my private, unscientific research. So I stopped and asked the question, “How many of you have lost a relative or acquaintance to violence over the past year?” To my utter surprise, all but two hands went up. Confident that I was misunderstood, I went into detail to explain what I meant and then asked the question again. The same number of hands went up. Only this time, several of the students turned on one boy who did not put up his hand. They insisted he should as the police had killed his father. Visibly upset, the boy dashed from the room and did not return.

Aggression is any behaviour intended to hurt others physically or verbally. It is common in children and is part of normal development. The reasons are many and varied — mental health issues or medical conditions can make the child aggressive. Identifying the cause of aggression and training children to manage their emotions are effective ways to help them control aggressive behaviours.

According to Dr Denis Sukhodolsky of the Yale Child Study Center, anger issues are the most common reason children are referred for mental health treatment, and they often accompany other mental health conditions, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and Tourette syndrome.

It cannot be overlooked that anger is just one of the not-so-subtle ways children are showing their novel coronavirus anxiety. The pandemic has impacted our behaviour and mental health in a variety of telling ways. This is not just a Jamaican phenomenon. The Federal Aviation Administration has initiated over 1,000 unruly passenger investigations this year — five times more than those identified in the previous year.

The response to violence in children requires a variety of assessments by professionals. Is this available?

When I had the experience with that class in Spanish Town, I contacted the office that deals with mental health issues in the area. The cordial discussion ended this way: “If the budgetary allocation for the entire island was sent to Spanish Town, it would be grossly inadequate.”

We are in crisis! And long before the onset of the pandemic. The crisis stems from dysfunctional family relationships that have been ignored for decades. The kind and quality of intervention needed are now well beyond the reach of our budget. There will be more acts of violence. Soon. We will have to be creative. A crisis never improves mental health.

Glenn Tucker is an educator and a sociologist. Send comments to the Jamaica Oserver or glenntucker2011@gmail.com