‘A missing 12-year-old is everybody’s business,’ Potter declares, as she warns against complacency and indifference
Gladys Potter, welfare officer of the United Progressive Party, is appealing to
the authorities and to the community to seek answers regarding the welfare of
a 12-year-old boy who, reports say, has been missing since February.
Potter, a mother of four, herself, says she was appalled to learn of this matter
only on Wednesday morning, June 26 – via a REAL News report – and asks,
“how can this happen?”
She recalls growing up in a community in which all the adults used to look out
for the wellbeing of children, even going as far as to question strangers about
their presence in the neighbourhood.
Like many other residents – including teachers and counselors – she is asking
why the public was not alerted to a situation so grave.
“[But] knowing is half the battle,” Potter says and asks what the community is
going to do with the knowledge.
She warns that our ways of life and very culture are at stake if this matter is
treated with complacency or indifference and fails to awaken the
consciousness of the Nation.
Meanwhile, responding to the news on Wednesday, a source tells our
Newsroom that, according to the Grays Farm Police Station, the father took
custody of the primary-school student and the boy is now living in Bolans.
However, other police and welfare sources contradict that statement, alleging
that the boy is not in his father’s care and that each parent has passed the
buck to the other.
One disbelieving counselor, reacting yo the police statement, asks: “Did they
see the child?”
When a 12-year-old is missing and it is covered up,” Potter says, “it is an evil
act.”
Progressive FM talk-show host William “Zizi” Thomas is also shocked by the
official silence surrounding this mystery, stating. “that too quiet, Man.”
He, too, wonders why the matter has not been circulated on flyers or posted
on the electronic billboards, thereby alerting the public.
Chiding the so-called activists who, he says, are now aware of the situation, he
calls on them to reach out to the parents in an effort to determine what, really,
is going on.