Police armed with machine guns descended on the Cable Beach home of Prime Minister Perry Christie recently to protect him and his family after they had received intelligence reports that his household was supposed to be shot up by criminal elements.
Top police officials were today reluctant to discuss the matter with the media, but this is believed to have heightened the prime minister’s resolve to deal with criminals.
Assistant Commissioner of Police for Crime Reginald Ferguson said that no police official is prepared to discuss the prime minister’s security as it is classified information.
Mr. Christie questioned this weekend why his life and the lives of his family members should be threatened while brutes who shoot people down “like dogs” remain free to do as they wish. The incident reportedly took place last Wednesday night.
The prime minister told the Bahama Journal he is tired of the unending crime spree that has terrorized a number of Bahamians in recent weeks and he is ready to act to reduce the fear that grips innocent people in their homes, on their jobs and on the streets.
“I am prepared to act,” Mr. Christie told the Bahama Journal.
The prime minister plans to call a special conclave tomorrow to brief Members of Parliament on specific steps his government will take in assisting law enforcement officers in attacking the scourge of crime.
“My concern on this question of terrorism [goes] beyond cross-border terrorism that is imported into our country,” Mr. Christie said. “My concerns are directed to the terrorists on our streets who are terrorizing people and causing them to be in fear in their homes, on the streets and on the playing fields.
“We can not tolerate that.”
Seven murders have already been reported this year in addition to several weekend shootings. Mr. Christie said these types of activities cannot be tolerated. He expressed concerns that the recent shootings were matters that were not domestic in nature.
“Even though the police have demonstrated their ability to detect through investigations the culprits…it nevertheless, is a loss of seven lives and these, as I understand it, are not domestic violence cases,” Mr. Christie noted. “If the domestic circumstances are to come to bear on the killing situation in our country, then we have a bad year ahead of us, because none of the cases so far have to do with that.”
The prime minister told the Bahama Journal that he is disheartened by mounting crime and he intends to do something about it.
He was low on specifics, but Mr. Christie is expected to soon introduce a revision to the Bail Act to keep more suspects off the streets. Police have said that the suspects in the recent murders were either on bail, ex-convicts or linked to a crime. One of the men murdered was also out on bail after being charged with two murders and police had linked him to two additional murders.
Mr. Christie revealed that the police have started a major surveillance effort to track illegal guns and the criminals who carry them.
The prime minister said he has also advised the attorney general that the administration of justice is too slow and measures need to be put in place to improve the efficiency of the court system.
“You cannot have a situation where justice is uncertain and justice is slow, where someone charged with murder has to wait five, six months for a preliminary inquiry,” Mr. Christie said. “That just doesn’t seem to do any good to our society to have that kind of lethargy, slowness in the system. So, I have asked the attorney general to sit with his people with the view of reviewing the administration of justice.”
He said he expects “immediate” improvements.
“We have to bring certainty, we have to bring quick justice,” Mr. Christie said. “The consequences must be certain and must be swift and that is what we have to do here where there is no ifs or maybes about punishment.”
The prime minister, a proponent of capital punishment, said the Bahamas has to sort out the capital punishment question once and for all.
A number of constitutional challenges over the years have halted hangings in the Bahamas. The last count provided by the Ministry of National Security put the number of people on death row at 29.
A number of applications before the courts question the constitutionality of executions.
“Here in the Bahamas, it is still the law and we don’t have the right to allow our own indifference to acting in a timely fashion to cause the delays in the processing of criminal cases where you automatically – because it takes more than five years to go through the entire gamut of appeals – reach the point where it is unconstitutional because it’s cruel and inhumane punishment,” Mr. Christie said.
He said there are cases from the Bahamas that will be heard before the Privy Council this year.
“Meantime, we recognize what the law of the Bahamas is and whenever it is a question of enforcing the law, then the law is enforced,” Mr. Christie said.
As his government moves on crime, the prime minister pointed out that the work of officials and law enforcement officers would be in vain if there is little support from members of the public in the war on crime.
“This is the time when every man has to be counted,” Mr. Christie said.
By Candia Dames, The Bahama Journal
