Faced with increased firearm use and 11 murders for the first two months of the year, police officers will today begin a multi-pronged initiative in an “aggressive” three-month crackdown on firearm-related crime, senior officers from the Royal Bahamas Police Force announced yesterday.
The nationwide initiative will involve the uniform and plain-clothes branches of the force, along with the Criminal Detective and Drug Enforcement units. Officers from the Royal Bahamas Police Force Band will also play an “integral” part in the initiative, which will involve the band reviewing its slate of engagements in order to provide the number of officers needed for the operation.
“An island-wide operation will target persons on the streets and will take the form of aggressive search and stops of suspected vehicles and persons,” said Chief Supt. Christopher McCoy.
“We will do name checks of persons who may be wanted on warrants or wanted for questioning. This operation would also include members of the police force band and is intended to run for three months. At the end of three months we will revisit the operation, look at the stats and see exactly where we are.”
So far for the year, firearm statistics are up, reported Chief Supt. Marvin Dames.
For the first six weeks of 2006, police recovered 29 weapons from the streets of Nassau and Grand Bahama, said Chief Supt. Dames.
Those weapons, which included “Glocs,” sawn off shotguns and revolvers, were on display for the media at yesterdayﾴs press conference at Police Headquarters.
“Criminal possession of firearms and the use of firearms in the commission of crimes continue to rise. Figures for 2005 show that 65 percent of reported homicides and 76 percent of reported armed robberies involved the use of a firearm. This is unacceptable. We shall spare no effort in our attempts to take firearms out of the hands of criminals,” Chief Supt. Dames warned.
Senior officers say that the criminalﾴs weapon of choice is a firearm, particularly a .9mm, and are hoping that this initiative will result in a reduction of firearm-related violence.
“At the beginning of this year, many communities would have witnessed an increased presence of uniformed and plain clothes officers moving about on foot and in vehicles during the day and evening hours,” said Chief Supt. Dames. “These activities will intensify in the days, weeks and months ahead.”
The force, said Chief Supt. Dames, is also working closely with its regional and international partners in an effort to strengthen its detection and recovery efforts.
The senior officer compared the trend in illegal firearms to current drug trafficking trends. “There are Bahamians engaging in trafficking firearms. Just as you would buy a gram of marijuana on the streets you can go to certain individuals and buy a bullet or a box of bullets.”
“There are so many ports that you can get weapons into. There are signs of weapons coming out of the states coming into our islands in the north, then into Nassau. We import most of our goods, thereﾴs a significant amount of freight traffic passing through our ports [and they] are vulnerable, and we canﾴt dismiss the question of corruption,” said Chief Supt. Dames. “These are things we have to address and will address and we hope that at the end of the day you will see some positive results.”
The majority of firearms are being recovered from “urban” areas, particularly Bain Town. The Grove, Carmichael Road, Nassau Village and Pinewood Gardens, reported Inspector Ricardo Taylor, officer-in-charge of firearms.
Inspector Taylor said that of the weapons recovered in The Bahamas, 70 percent are from Florida and can be traced back to places like Texas, Washington and New York, and 99.9 percent of the total weapons recovered come from the Untied States.
The senior officers appealed to the public to cooperate with police in identifying the whereabouts of illegal firearms and persons in possession of them.
“This message is being sent for all to hear and take heed; that there will be no safe hiding place for anyone involved in any way in this illegal enterprise,” said Chief Supt. Dames.
By Erica Wells, The Bahama Journal
