When will enough be enough?

If the cold-blooded shooting of Shaundae Jones early on Monday morning does not spark a community-wide commitment to ending violence, then surely nothing will.

While neither the cause, nor the perpetrators, of the shooting are known yet, that should not prevent the public from coming together and ensuring that no more young lives are ended prematurely.

It is a sad sign of the times that few people apart from Shaundae's mother have come forward to condemn this cowardly act. Indeed, there seems to be a resigned acceptance that these kinds of acts will occur.

That is not good enough. Bermuda is too small, and its problems too minor, to accept that young men and women will die simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

There has been denial for too long that Bermuda has a gang problem. We should count our blessings that the gangs in Bermuda may well be neither as well-organised nor as menacing as, for example, the Crips and Bloods who terrorised Los Angeles in the 1990s. But that is no reason to deny their existence. And it is no reason not to act to put a stop to them.

Tomorrow, Shaundae's mother Marsha Jones will speak to students at two schools to express her grief and to convince young people not to get involved in gangs or violence.

Her message needs to go out to every school. and the families of past victims of violent crimes should also come forward to tell their stories.

By demonstrating the horrendous consequences of these acts, they will persuade at least some young people that there are better paths than getting involved in gangs and drugs.

The effort cannot stop there. Bermuda's leaders, both within politics and without, have to step up and condemn these acts and explain exactly how they are building a better life with real career and life choices.

The Police have been criticised in the past for not doing enough to deter crime and gang activities. Some of the criticism is well-founded and some comes from sheer frustration. The Police cannot be expected to solve a crime before it happens. But by re-emphasising the community beat scheme and by putting more officers on the streets they can five the general, law-abiding public some assurance that they are safe and they can also show that they are not the enemy.

Finally, young people themselves have to recognise that they have choices to make and that they will live and die as a result of those choices.

Life is not easy, and Bermuda is small and can be frustrating.

The way to make a better life is to work and study hard, to contribute to the community in positive ways and to stand up and tell their peers when they are doing wrong.

The vast majority of young people in Bermuda are model citizens. Now is the time for them to demonstrate by their acts that there is a better form of live than violence.