Let's See IF This Works: Premier calls for crackdown on crime

Hon Mike Adam, Minister of
Community Affairs
and Housing

The recent spike in crime prompted the Premier, the Hon McKeeva Bush, to call for a crime-fighting task force to be implemented immediately following the shooting death Monday night of four-year-old Jeremiah Barnes, killed when two men approached the parked car he sat in with his family at the Hell gas.

“It was a senseless act possibly involving drugs, where an innocent boy was killed”, said the Premier.

The special task force will work with the Commissioner of Police, David Baines to develop strategies to deal with the new wave of offences, and is fully supported by the government and the Governor His Excellency Duncan Taylor, according to the Premier. He also acknowledged that the newly-appointed National Security Council (NSC) will also advise the government on crime and public safety policies.

The government has adopted “a policy of zero tolerance” and supports the purchase and implementation of additional security measures including CCTV, machinery for x-raying containers to identify weapons, more effective coastal patrols, and strengthening of gang legislation.

Some policies would take effect over the long-term, but the task force can be established immediately.

The Hon Mike Adam, Minister of Community Affairs and Housing, said that preventative action among families needs to start with parents being more accountable. In addition, more community youth programmes should be created.

“There are those who need to be rounded up and locked away,” said Mr Adam, “but there are many others who will benefit from social intervention programmes.”

Mr Bush asserted that many perpetrators involved in recent criminal activity are not foreign criminals: “They are Caymanian, and the community must give their full support to the police in order to bring the perpetrators of crime to justice.”

In one recent incident, the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service (RCIPS) reported that a man armed with what appeared to be a firearm entered Mr G’s barber shop on Eastern Avenue on Friday, 12 February, at 7:50 pm, threatening a man in the shop with a gun before running off.

In another incident, Police reported that shots were fired in the area of School Road in George Town on Monday 15 February at about 1:15am, damaging a parked car.

“With help from the public,” said the Premier, “and the time needed to carry out our policies, our efforts will result in less crime, more business and job creation.”