St. Maarten Private Eye

flipper,

I just want to thank you for keeping us informed and posting the horrific TODAY editorials. I did also see that at least they published Dick Jefferson's letter.

I was a visitor to St. Martin/St. Maarten (travelling with the author of Personal boycott) when the attack happened. Luckily we had gone to bed early that night in preparation for our trip home the next day. My friends had seen Ryan Smith, Dick Jefferson and their friends several times on the island being in many of the same places they frequented. It really frightened me that it could have just as easily been my friends that were attacked. I had no idea that when my friend that I've been vacationing with for 10+ years referred to "gay-friendly" or "not gay-friendly" that the latter could mean such vicious violence.

I've been searching the internet since then about the entire Caribbean and have found that the issues concerning lack of police response seem to be the case almost everywhere.

I'm also thankful for your blog to see that most of the people of SXM are thoughtful, intelligent and also outraged about the attack.

I think we will all feel safer when the thugs responsible are arrested and convicted.

Thank you again for keeping us informed.