USA Today Weekend Edition Reports on St. Thomas Murder

The Friday/Saturday/Sunday, July 16-18, 2010 edition of USA Today reported on the Monday, July12th Coki Beach murder of a 14-year-old cruise ship passenger who arrived on St. Thomas with her family aboard Carnival Victory.

“This week’s gang-related shooting of a 14-year-old cruise passenger on tour in St. Thomas — an act the U.S. Virgin Islands’ congressional delegate called part of a”plague of violence”  — is the latest in a string of bad news for the tourism-dependent Caribbean,” states the article. “Passenger Lizmarie Perez Chapparro was killed on Monday near popular Coki Point Beach as she rode with her family on a “safari bus” that ferries tourists across the island. The girl and her family had arrived in St. Thomas earlier in the day aboard Carnival Victory, which sails out of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Another cruise ship passenger sustained a minor injury during the shootout, and a local man also was killed.”

 

“With a population of about 110,000, the U.S. territory had a homicide rate last year that was about 10 times the USA’s national average of five killings per 100,000 people,” continued USA Today. “There already have been 44 killings across the territory in 2010 — a 33% increase from this time in 2009.”