Police Commissioner Ellison Greenslade has put an end to speculation that the stabbing at Government High School last week was gang related.

Mr. Greenslade went as far to call the students involved “wannabees,” noting that the incident was started by two groups shouting gang slogans but assured that persons involved were simply immature and had no links to gang activity.

His comments came as he was speaking to reporters outside of Police Headquarters after a ceremony to mark the completion of two joint-training courses coordinated with the United States Embassy and Jamaica’s Constabulary Force.

“Unfortunately all this is, is a reflection of what we have always said. People that do not know how to resolve conflicts, young people, middle-aged, and old. Here we have children in our schools that know each other very well, and if they had been allowed, possibly would have killed each other and that is very sad.

“It stemmed over silly gang slogans, gang talk, someone screams out some silly name of a gang, the opposing side screams another name, and then you have a big fisticuff.

Just unruly, wannabes little kids, with younger kids it’s fashionable to say crazy stuff.”

The commissioner also gave an update on the investigation into the stabbing.

“The most important update is no loss of life, despite lots of things being said yesterday due to excellent work by people who responded, the child most seriously injured is stable and is going to be okay,” Mr. Greenslade said.

Mr. Greenslade added that calls for heavier police presence on school campuses were unwarranted due to the fact a relationship had already been established between the police and education officials.

“We are satisfied that teachers, students, guidance counsellors, did everything correctly. We’ve had assessments post the incident and I’m hoping to get an update soon that will point clearly to who those perpetrators were and I’m not going to ignore what they did,” he said.

“I don’t want to mislead the Bahamian public measures have always been in the school. We have been proactive for years now in working very closely with the director of education, the Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT), guidance counselors and principals on a very intimate level.

“In this instance there was an officer on the premises who was well known, has good authority, and assisted, but this spontaneous outburst, this anger between these young people, got out of control very quickly.

“So no need for alarm and this nonsense of school’s being overtaken is absolute rubbish. I think we’re going to be fine,” Mr. Greenslade said.