Classmate Seeks Justice for Jessica by Emese Nemeth

Dear Editor:

I am currently a senior at the Gifft Hill School and Jessica Samuel is a close friend of mind and reading your article following up on her accident really shows the injustice and laziness of the V.I. Police Department. When I read the St. John Tradewinds and its reports on the infamous V.I. Police Department, it always makes my blood boil but now that police have dismissed Jessica’s case, I am furious.

It does not take years of training in a police academy to know some of the basic procedures that take place after a car accident and my question to the police is why wasn’t the man’s information taken down after the accident? According to the Tradewinds article, the driver of the pickup truck was never identified, which also translates to the police let him go without question. I would also like to ask the police why a sobriety test wasn’t given to the man who hit Jessica? The oncoming car hit Jessica with such a force to flip her car, which only takes common sense to determine that it was the oncoming driver’s fault, but the police are leaving that matter for court.

As more cases are left unsolved or left to our equally embarrassing judges, the Virgin Islands community is losing its trust in the justice system. At the Gifft Hill School, a majority of students take the VIPD as a joke and know it’s not a system they can rely on because of personal experience. From the David Geiger case to now Jessica Samuel, when is enough, enough? Will our Governor deJongh ever step in and make change? It has just become so blatantly obvious that the police don’t care about anyone and they have lost all respect within the youth of St. John.

Emese Nemeth,
Class of 2008
Gifft Hill School