I watched Ronide Casséus talk about his son Jayson, murdered not a month ago. And I didn’t understand where this strength came from.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
Jayson Colin was 26 years old. Son of Montreal-North, involved in the community, no known enemies, not known to the police as is the formula to speak of individuals who are involved in shady affairs.
The death of “JayJay”, on August 10, struck the imagination in the neighborhood, yet accustomed to such shocks.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Ronide Casséus, mother of Jayson Colin, on the sidelines of a press conference Place Normandie, in Montreal North
Tuesday, Ronide Casséus had summoned the media Place Normandie, a small archipelago of HLM where she worked as a worker with children and teenagers for 15 years; Place Normandie, where she lived with “JayJay”, they arrived when the little one was 2 years old, she said, pointing to the direction of the apartment…
And that’s when M.me Casséus cracked, evoking his arrival with Jayson Place Normandie, it was at this moment that a tear began to flow under his sunglasses, tracing a long furrow towards his jaw, on the right cheek.
Losing your son, even at 26, is a heartbreak without name. You have to be strong to talk about your baby like this at a press conference. Strong like a mother.
Ronide Casséus was flanked by her spouse, Roberson Berlus, a street worker at the Café-Jeunesse Multi-culturel de Montréal-Nord. Between them, Ronide Casséus and Roberson Berlus embody the tragedy of Montreal North, the tragedy of these neighborhoods where there is more and more pressure lately.
Mme Casséus, as I was saying, worked for 15 years with young people in the neighborhood. His dedication surely kept a lot of it from going wrong. For this, she was paid peanuts. For this, she received a distinction from the National Assembly1.
As a street worker, Mr. Berlus forges links with young people, also prevents them from going wrong. He is on call 24/7. He is a form of pedagogy, often intervening in the media to explain Montreal North.
In February 2021, I chronicled an interview with Mr. Berlus2 to Montreal Journal, about these increasingly numerous shootings, about young people in Montreal North, who were thinking of arming themselves: “There is this fear. Some tell me: “It’s dangerous, I have to defend myself.” For the past year, almost all of these young people have known someone, directly or indirectly, who has been hit by bullets. »
And there, exactly 18 months after those words from Roberson Berlus, someone he knew very, very closely, Jayson, the son of his lover, his stepson, would become another victim of gun violence. fire in this town…
Mme Casséus spoke at length about his son, his love for sport, for hockey in particular; of this project that “JayJay” had to facilitate the practice of hockey for disadvantaged young people in Montreal North. Mme Casséus spoke of his son in great detail: Jayson, the gluer; the cuddly; Jayson, the child who had grown and matured prematurely due to his mother’s frequent stays in the hospital; Jayson, who had never gotten himself into trouble; Jayson, with whom she formed a team…
I watched Ronide Casséus talk about his son mainly in the present tense, in phrases like: “Jayson is a child who…”
I thought: verb tense is sometimes a buoy to which we cling when mourning is still burning, when the memory of loved ones is still vivid, too vivid to combine them in the past.
Mme Casséus and Mr. Berlus had a few messages to get out of the current slump.
First, they wonder where the security plan is for the neighborhood to regain its serenity. It is not normal, said Ronide Casséus, that people are afraid to go out after 7 p.m. in the evening, as is the case in Montreal North.
Then, there must be a balance in the investments. Of course, more police, more means. But not only that. Balance also in the sums that we will invest in prevention and repression.
There was also talk, in veiled terms, of not always funding the same organizations. To properly fund organizations that are close to the field, but which – if I decipher correctly – are perhaps less well connected to the decision-makers… I relay this message by recalling that there are only three street workers in all Montreal North, including Mr. Berlus. You don’t have to be a graduate in socio-criminology to understand that this is too little.
As for their personal suffering, Ronide Casséus and Roberson Berlus noted that while Jayson’s death has been publicized, even though they both have known roots in the neighborhood, official condolence notes have not been plentiful.
Isabelle Brais, the spouse of François Legault, went to see them, she was an attentive and compassionate ear. One of the few in the known political circuit, lamented Ronide Casséus and Roberson Berlus.
Coming back to the car after the press conference, there was a bullet casing on the ground. A green gun shell, foam, you know, for toy guns…
The only kind of socket you should find in a city like Montreal.
I wrote down in my notebook: “Green Nerf socket”.
I randomly jotted this down a page as I walked, so as not to forget the picture, right next to those words I had jotted down earlier, during the press conference: “A tear is flowing, furrow is there, under the eye”.
And something struck me, something I hadn’t had time to write down: Ronide Casséus never wiped away that tear.