CLOSE to a week ago, I lay in bed watching cartoons when I heard screaming. It jolted me, but I didn’t immediately get up. The screaming went on for over 10 seconds before the thought occurred to me that someone was in need of help. I picked up my phone and ran outside; first to see what was happening, call the police and then offer help if I could.

I didn’t have to call the police, because the screamer was a middle-aged woman living three houses away who has some mental issues. She was just standing in the front yard screaming. A minute after, she suddenly stopped and calmly went into her house.

I read the story a few days ago of the two men, Nicholas Christopher and Hillary Edwards, who reportedly confessed to sodomising, viciously raping a young boy and dumping his lifeless body. It was reported that residents heard the screams of a child, 12-year-old Leonard Archibald, but did not take it to mean “anything serious.”

As more and more information regarding the details of the heinous crime and its perpetrators came in, I didn’t quite know how to react to it. One of the lines that struck me instantly and continues to strike me every time I see it, is the one that claims, “one of the men is known for interfering with teen boys in the area.”

So, it is public knowledge that a sex offender lives amongst you all of these years and nothing was done? Even worse, you are armed with the knowledge that a sex offender lives amongst you and you just ignore the cries of a screaming child?

News reports state that several boys have since come forward who have been raped, molested or attempts were made to do so by the main suspect, Hillary Edwards. Several cases were said to have been reported to the Sisters Police Station against Edwards, but he escaped being charged because, get this, he would leave the community for about a month by which time the “police forget about the incidents.”

I have long since talked about the incompetence and general neglect of some of the men and women charged with the protection of the citizens of its country, but this was not the depths to which I expected it to reach.

I saw that some of the villagers took to the streets to march for justice for Leonard. Had their voices been present and had they been proactive in weeding out the paedophiles from within their community rather than burying their heads in the sand, they would not have had to march. Leonard would have still been alive had the first child who was targeted by this rapist had got the justice they needed. The police failed Leonard and every single child who was molested or raped by Edwards or who was targeted by him. There is no excuse for this incompetence, none.

I feel disgusted not only towards Christopher and Edwards who allegedly raped and killed Leonard, I felt disgusted at all the neighbours who heard the frantic screams of a child and did not think the child might need their help. Their disinterest in investigating a screaming child tells us a lot about our society and how embedded the culture of abuse and violence is within us.

We don’t investigate because ‘is probably somebody bussing they child tail.’ Or, we ignore their screams and say that we ‘not getting into man an’ woman story.’ That is just what we do, because violence is a norm. We see it in our neighbours, we see it in our friends and we see it in our homes. We often perpetrate it ourselves, because our culture has shaped us to think that violence is normal.

When I think about how this violence shapes us, I think of how over the years I have had to actively restrain myself from hitting my child, because when I misbehaved as a child, I was hit. I think of how this violence shapes us when I think back to a week ago when I heard my neighbour’s screams and hesitated.

This was a normal sound for me. I had grown up hearing the screams of ignored women and unchecked-on children. This was a normal sound for me. Even though I responded to the woman’s screams, I still feel ashamed that I hesitated for all those seconds when a woman could have possibly been dying.

All those people who heard and ignored Leonard’s screams should be ashamed and this should weigh on our consciences. Leonard’s death should weigh on all of our consciences, because it is our collective culture that has shaped a society that ignores and hesitates in the face of cries for help.