Idiocy at The Barbados Advocate: Murderous 25 year old career criminal described as “Youth”

Headline: “Youth jailed for 10 years for killing visitor”

When Curtis Joel Foster chased down Canadian tourist Teresa “Terry” Schwarzfeld at Long Beach last year and beat her to death he was 24 years old and in the middle of a one man violent crime wave that had been going on at Long Beach for over a year. Foster committed multiple robberies, thefts, assaults and is or was charged with at least one rape of a tourist.

Foster is not a “youth” by any stretch of imagination, but that’s how the Barbados Advocate described him in their headline.

Was the paper trying to mitigate the public disgust at the light 10 year sentence by indicating that Foster is a “youth” and therefore somehow less responsible for his actions?

This is not the first time we’ve seen the term “youth” misapplied by the Barbados Advocate to describe adult men in their mid-20’s who commit violent crimes. We’ve noticed that the paper habitually refers to adult criminals as “youths” even if they are talking about a gang of not-quite 30-year-old thugs hanging out at the T.

Is it that “youths” are somehow less threatening to our image?

Words matter, so we’re calling the Barbados Advocate out for their idiocy… or their propaganda.

What do you think folks? Have you noticed this trend by the paper? Why do the people at the Barbados Advocate continue to describe 24 year old adult males as “youths”?

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Barbados Court: Murder of Canadian tourist Terry Schwarzfeld only worth 10 years in prison – Hunted down on beach in broad daylight

Murdered Canadian tourist Terry Schwarzfeld

UPDATE: Victim Impact Statement as read in court

Our Take on the light sentence:

A plea bargain to dispose of the ugly situation as soon as possible. Only ten years for hunting down a tourist on the beach and beating her to death.

Barbados doesn’t want any scrutiny about robbery, rape and violence against tourists by the same accused at the same location for a year prior to the Schwarzfeld murder. Wouldn’t want the Royal Barbados Police Force to look stupid. Bad for business. “Say… what’s on TV tonight? Anything of interest happen at work today dear?”

Adrian Loveridge, small hotel owner

Bajan hotel owner Adrian Loveridge comments on the lousy 10 year sentence…

‘10 years for killing visitor’

Sometimes people have to speak out and if that means there are consequences, then so-be-it.

Curtis Joel Foster had already been convicted of 8 robberies including 5 on visitors. We know that at least two of these involved extreme violence because my wife personally treated two of the victims.

Mitigating arguments by the defence lawyer included ‘The court does accept that there was no use of a firearm’, but that is NOT true according to a victim impact statement issued by the husband of the murdered Teresa Schwarzfeld, Stephen Cotsman and printed in the Ottawa Citizen on 22 March and other Canwest publications across Canada.

He stated ‘we understand that he (Foster) has not admitted to what really occured and this adds to our family’s pain. Luana Cotsman is a survivor of the attack and knows exactly what happened’.

‘First, Foster accosted them with a gun and demanded money’.

‘Then, when they truthfully told him that they did not have any (money), he ran back to the bushes and retrieved a big piece of wood (the size of a baseball bat) and chased them as they ran for safety. He caught up with Terry and hit her on the back of the head – so hard that he fractured her skull. Terry never woke up again’.

And what of the rape charge?

One has to ask if the sentence matches the crimes committed and what sort of message is Barbados sending over its concerns for the safety and security of visitors to our shores?

Our deepest sympathies go out to the grieving family with the assurance that some of us do not consider the sentence passed anywhere close to being applicable to the severity of the crimes committed.

Adrian Loveridge

(And all of us at Barbados Free Press sign on to Adrian’s position: Marcus, Shona, George, Cliverton, Robert & Auntie Moses)