Bush wants crime task force

| 10/08/2009

(CNS):  The United Democratic Party government is recommending that the new police commissioner, David Baines establish a special task force to deal with rising gun crime and all aspects of national security. Leader of Government Business McKeeva Bush said that while his government is making important plans for national development to secure the future of the Cayman Islands, none of those plans will be of any use if the country does not address the crime problem.

“If crime is not seriously checked our plans will be for nothing,” said Bush. “Hard action must be taken now and I know when this works starts there will be grumbling as there always is about the work of the police.” He said as a country people had to reconsider the common attitudes about crime and consider what is happening to the country.  He said people had to rethink the attitude of "It is not my child."

“The fact is it is somebody’s child doing it,” added Bush. “And it is somebody’s child that is getting shot. This will be an unsafe country if we don’t take hard action.”

Bush said that he had already spoken to both the governor, who has responsibility for the police, as well as the commissioner about establishing the task force and said he had made it very clear he is not one to mollycoddle criminals.

However, Bush said he could not give more details of what sort of task force he was talking about until he had finalised the discussions with the commissioner. “It won’t be fair to him or the governor to say what will happen before we have completed our discussions,” said Bush. “But both of them need to understand we can’t allow criminals to run around.” He said he believed the new commissioner was eager to address the serious crime problem and Bush said he believed Cayman had a good new man.

He did say that back in the 1990s government had set up a task force to deal with the growth in “late night sessions and the crime surrounding them.” Bush said the task force in special vehicles had cracked some heads but had killed the late night crime. “We need to get a grip on the guns that are coming in on the canoes and boats,” the LoGB added.

He said that he intended to engage with the commissioner and would be taking advantage of the invitation by Commissioner Baines and the governor to sit in on their meetings. Bush also said one of the things he was in favour of with regards the new Constitution was the creation of a National Security Council and the right of the elected leader to meet with the police heads without the governor.

The LoGB said he expected that the police would issue a statement today about the shooting over the weekend but offered no more details on what had happened. In their latest statement the police have chosen not to confirm that the shots fired at a house in Spotts, Newlands was that of Chief Magistrate Margaret Ramsay-Hale.

 

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  1. Anonymous says:

    LOL! That "pension holiday" is a crime.

  2. Anonymous says:

    "Soon someone will take the law in there own hands and start killing these criminals, what do we have to lose here.  It’s only about 50 to 60 of them, lets take them out, one by one we know who they are all…. God help us all, what has my country came to.."

    Just change the laws to let proven law-abiding residents have weapons for self-defence, and then let the criminals come to us.  We don’t have to hunt them down.  Just wait until they try to break in your house or rob you, and then solve the problem once and for all.

    I wish there were a way to let the police handle crime prevention, but they can’t.  We need to stick up for ourselves.  This is what your country has come to.  It is a very big shame.

  3. Twyla M Vargas says:

    ARE WE THERE YET???

    After carefully following the direction we are going in regards to crime in Cayman, I say this is only the beginning of things to come.  Nobody is listening, and those who are, are only talking and making plans that will go no where, just like calling the talk shows.  Its becomming a waste of time.  Every day it is the same cry but where is the solutions.

    Number  one, there are no penalties in the judicial system aimed at deterring what is taking place.  Criminals have no respect for police, and now the Judical, Why?.  The only place in the world where you can go and see criminals disrespect the police is Cayman Islands and England. 

    Try going to Honduras and fiesty with those Spaniards, they will shoot your ass.  Try it in Cuba, you will rot in prison for sure.   Try it in Jamaica, Phillipines, Nicaragua, france, or USA.  You cant.    Only Cayman and England Officers are disresprcted so blatantly by criminals.  Furthermore Cayman have some T. Soldiers from UK that are not familiar with the Culture of this Island, and dont know a darn about crime and prevention here.

    The problem in the police force is not the officers, the problem is the TOP RANK officers, Inspectors, Chief Inspectors, Deputy and Chief. of all departments, who are so afraid to do wrong they will not do the right thing of laying the frame work and backing all of the hard working officers who is out there on foot in cars, boat bus and donkey trying to keep the peace. 

    The Few Caymanian police we have in the force need to accept what is their culture and stop  adopting the ways of others.  Be yourself and stop trying to talk like a Yardie or a Limie, and stop being hateful against your brothers and sisters in the force.  Darn it !!!! , things have really changed.  Cayman is a frustrating place to live now a day.

    • Anonymous says:

      HelloTwyla,

      I’m sorry but I have to disagree with you. You think that Cayman and the UK are the only places where police officers are disrespected? By that, I take it you mean that the criminals will argue or not do as the officers say. Well that is what they are bound to do – they are criminals. You then cite other countries where if officers are disrespected then the criminal will pay a heavy physical price. The problem I have with this is that in the countries you mention officers are killed at an alarming rate, versus Cayman and the UK. Cayman has not had any officers murdered, the UK, probably less in total than Jamaica have lost in a year.

      Which would you prefer, a population ruled by fear, who get a slap in the mouth for saying the wrong thing to the police, and then won’t give up cop killers, or a supportive population who by and large respect the police because they don’t mete out brutality. There is no middle road. You can’t have a mildly brutal police force who will only dish out to those who you perceive to be bad. You will have a force that will suppress any dissent against it – that includes feisty family members. You only have to look at the Stanford Prison Experiment –

       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

      to see what college graduates are willing to do to each other in only a short time of role play. Multiply that by a reduced intelligence, a belief that there is a popular mandate for brutality and you have a recipe for disaster. And before I get slated for the reduced intelligence bit – I was a cop for years and I am no university graduate. I do know right from wrong and believe me if you think that having an articulate officer  who is prepared to reason and talk his way out of violence is weakness, then you have very misguided expectations of your officers. Don’t get me wrong, if unlawful violence was used by criminals I was one of the first to get in the way of it, but just because a criminal was prepared to argue with me doesn’t mean I should have a state mandate to beat him into submission.

      You say that there are no penalties, but there are. Commit murder and get convicted and you getLife. Possess a firearm and get 10 years, possess body armour and you get the same. No where else in the world can the police demand urine for drug testing on such mild grounds. Very few places in the world have these kinds of penalties. Capital punishment is a hotly contested subject. The argument for and against can go back and forth and has done for decades. I don’t think the world was a better place when the death penalty was in place, I just think it was different and people were less informed.

      I think you are unfair to single out the UK officers as being unaware of the Caymanian culture – something that even Caymanians admit is undefined. I think you will find that officers from other countries are just as ignorant when they first arrive, but all make the effort to learn. Those that don’t will continue to operate as though they are still in their own jurisdictions.

      I appreciate that you as a law abiding Caymanian are frustrated by the rise in crime, but giving the police carte blanche to beat people up is not the way to resolve it. And I fully expect you to say that they would only do it to criminals, to the bad people, but you have no idea how many good people, who have had a bad day would fall foul of what you are proposing.

      Regards

      A Cop that joined to help.

      • Twyla M Vargas says:

        POINT WELL TAKEN FROM A COP THAT JOINED TO HELP.

        I have read your comments,  and I am positive your address to my letter is  on the basis of the few words which spoke T. Soldiers.  Are you really defending the Royal Cayman Islands police Force on a whole, of just a clip  of statement comments?    I am a Citizen who will split justice,  critize the police if necessary and fight for them if I have to. 

        I however can agreed with some of your comments, but not all.  I am a senior citizen of Cayman, and if there is one person who knows about Cayman and its culture, I do.  I am also pleased that you have responded, because it shows that someone is paying attention, even if it is only for specific reasons.  Now lets prove that most of my comments are not so by a  Cayman seeing the reality of  better place.  Once a cop alway as cop.  I know what that is because I have been there.  Walk good.

        • Anonymous says:

           Hello Twyla,

          I have to say that I didn’t answer on the basis of the T-soldier comment – I actually didn’t understand it and just thought it was a typo – Sorry 🙂 I replied on the basis of the undertone – which appeared to be that it was good to go along the route of allowing the police to hit people to maintain respect – which seems to be the case in countries that you cited, and that you seemed to subscribe to this philosophy. I was only trying to point out that this is not the way to go, because slapping someone doesn’t make them respect you. It makes them resent you and if you are bigger than them – physically and metaphorically speaking – then they will get you back in other ways and when you least expect it. In the countries you cited they kill the cops and no one gives up the perpetrators because there is no popular support for the police as they go round slapping everyone.

          I was not defending the RCIP but taking a principled stand point.

          Cop to cop – respect for making retirement age:-) May the Lord give you many more years.

          A Cop that joined to help.

  4. Anonymous says:

    "Soon someone will take the law in there own hands and start killing these criminals, what do we have to loose here.  It’s only about 50 to 60 of them, lets take them out, one by one we know who they are all….

    God help us all, what has my country came to.."

     

    REALLY!!!!!! 

    State sponsored murder. Is that what you and others here are advocating? OK suppose for one crazy moment that the Governor and Government are in agreement and they agree on this course of action. What then? Who is responsible for creating the list? What criteria are used to put someone on the list. Convicted? Unconvicted? Never been caught but someone said you did it? What crimes qualify? Once you get rid of the people for the big stuff then what about thepeople committing the small stuff? Kill them too, because if you don’t punish them sufficiently then won’t they graduate onto the bigger stuff? What if you upset the person responsible for the List? Will you end up on it? How will you feel when one of your relatives ends up on it – and knowing Cayman and family connections, someone you know or are related to will eventually end up on it. Maybe Cayman could create a murder list board as we know that boards work really well in Cayman. What would the checks and balances be and who would apply them?

    The fear of crime may be increasing in Cayman but do you really want to try to reduce that by creating Fear full stop. To say that if you don’t do anything wrong then you have nothing to fear is simplistic, because we all do some things wrong, sometimes, and how long before what you do wrong qualifies for the List.

    Extra judicial, state sponsored murder is not the answer. Vigilantes are not the answer. If vigilantes really do know who did what to the certainty that they are prepared to kill someone, then why haven’t they turned that evidence over to the police? And they must surely have evidence, for what else would give them that certainty. If they witnessed it then why are they not witnesses? Or are they just prepared to kill because of the Marl Road, because we all know how accurate that is, don’t we?

    I believe that many of these comments are frustrated soundbites, if they are not and you truly believe what you are saying then God help Cayman. You need to think through the consequences of this kind of collective action. Throughout history many have tried to create this kind of society, Nero, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot etc. Where in history has state sponsored murder ever created stability, prosperity and a utopian society. Your fear will shift from fear of the criminals to the state. Fear of the criminals would pale in comparison to the fear you would feel from the State. Is this what you want for Cayman?

    • Dennie Warren Jr. says:

       

      I agree with you that state sponsored murder is absolutely unacceptable.
  5. Anonymous says:

    Soon someone will take the law in there own hands and start killing these criminals, what do we have to loose here.  It’s only about 50 to 60 of them, lets take them out, one by one we know who they are all….

    God help us all, what has my country came to..

  6. Anonymous says:

    It is my opinion and this is simply an opinion that the recent corruption probe  had many allegations of corruption to investigate but were unable to produce sufficient legal evidence to take people to trial thus the lack of seeming positive results.

    The lack of convictions in the corruption probe to my mind does not indicate a clean bill of health as a result of the corruption investigations and I believe those who have evidence to give in criminal matters feel the same way and they will remain reluctant to come forward for fear of retaliation.

  7. Twyla M Vargas says:

     O. TOLERANCE, Tackle  crime.!!!!    We are getting too much LIP SERVICE on the talk shows and no one is doing anything.   Just make sure the right persons are selected who wont shoot themselves in the foot.  I have been saying all along, this is a very stressful job for the police, while on the other hand it is a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.   Also in such doings, we need to remember that POLICE ALSO NEED TO BE PROTECTED.  This is a two way plug,  So if We want them to protect us, then we need to protect them too.   We cannot be selfish and think we should lay safely in our beds at night while the police gets no sleep and being a magacian.   Help the police, equipt them, pay them well and then rest assured.  Blessed 

  8. Johnny Cake wid a cup of coffey(e) says:

    I say make the whole force a crime task force!! 

    I am really angry.  It cant be no more than about 50 hard core criminals that would try and destroy their homeland.  Obviously, I am assuming they are all local.  Something deep down tells me otherwise.  The influence is very foreign (in some of the recent crimes) and the mindset indicates an influence from somewhere else.

    Where is the intelligence unit in the RCIPS?  Where are the persons in the community that should be calling in tip-offs to the police?

    Finally, I like what Prime Minister Thompson is doing in Barbados to clean house.  Hate to say it but we need to clean house ya soon (today).

    Sometime ago (ABOUT TWO YEARS)…the former Immigration Chief (Manderson) gave a staggering number of illegal migrants in the country.  An amnesty was offered; as I recall we heard about the follow-up numbers ONCE.  That number was a shameful one.  We have not heard didly-squat about this since.  Where are these people?  Who are they?  Where are they working?  Do we have pictures of them on file?  What is immigration doing about this?

    You know wha: I going have a lil coffey and some crackers and try calming down a lil.  Unna please help me pray.  This nah no joke either okay.

  9. Anonymous says:

    Mac, is right in saying a special task force (STF) is needed, but as long as it is restricted by UK rules then the results are going to be the same; simple as that. the RCIPS currently have the USG who are following UK guidelines on the use of firearms. this is why the damn problem persist because these punks on the streets know that the guidelines are soft and actually pleasant to the criminals. what the cayman islands need is the old task force method that will strike the fear of god into criminals. let them tremble like they once did; not now engage in jolly conversation with the armed units patrolling the streets. in mid-late 2005 crime went almost non existent, then Kernohan came in Oct 2005 took all the credit , forgetting how it got to that state, changed the way crime was being tackled, and left the cayman islands in this damn mess. then came govenor jack with his corruption investigation and shut down the entire operations of the RCIPS. what did you all think would be the end result; you guess it right, a field day for the criminals. this shit has got to stop. i say put back the old task force style give them their guns 24/7 and let them loose on the streets. at least give this method a chance to stop this crap. oh, by the way the one thing that is left completely out is those two popular words HUMAN RIGHTS. now this has certainly changed the way policing is done. perhaps this all adds to the problem. but overall crime won’t stop because the criminals today are having children and the cycle continues. we are suffering today because of yesterday’s criminals child.  

  10. Anonymous says:

    We need to bring Derek Haines back, or people like him!

  11. Anonymous says:

    What they need to do is give the DTF group guns and let them help fight the crime.  How do they suppose the DTF group is going to fight the crime or the drug battle if they don’t have weapons to depend themselves.  The drug dealers don’t care and they are fully armed.  We sit here and blame the police force for not fighting crime but how much do we really know about what goes on with in the police headquarters.  They are humans too and though they might have taken an oath to protect the poeple but they also have families.  They put out this lengthy reports claiming that the police is doing this and that but are they??  Are they really doing all they can?  

    If they don’t have enough officers qualified to use guns then i say it is time they pick the best and train them.  It is only going to get worst if the criminals see they can get away with murder.

    As for everyone else who says they are leaving here to find a better place with no crime, please write back when you do so the rest of us can follow.  Every where has crime, the only reason we are seeing so much now is that for so long they have gotten a slap on wrist or sent to the hotel in Northward.  There is still time to change it but we have to work together as a group.   

    • Clearviewer says:

      Yes we need police that are trained in firearm use, on  when and how to use them, I have said for a long time that it is nice that we want to portray that  the police do not carry guns on them, but those days are long gone, we are no longer the island that time forgot.  This is the twenty first century and we have to go with the flow, there is going to be more incidents that will have to be handled differently, so now is the time to assist and arm the police especially the DTF with weapons, as the drug lords already have their weapons and are not afraid to use to them. 

      We know that there is a lot of guns out there if the thugs know it then the police should know it too,  do your detective work, undercover,start going to the docks when these boats come from  other countries with their so call ,fish etc, and  inspect their cargo, a lot can be solved right there, no one is on the docks some private ones when these boats come in, start being vigilant,  and citizens do your part , we can take cayman back but only together as a dedicated group, no affiliations of any party or club just citizens and residents of cayman, folks stop covering up for family or friends, you know some one that is doing a wrong lets call the 800 number and start reporting, do your part. Make our Island safe.

      • AnonyMouse says:

        Everybody seems to want to arm up the police.  The more police carry guns, the more criminals carry guns – a well documented fact worldwide.

        However, what strikes me as completely absurd is to have only one armed unit based in George Town – that makes no sense at all.  What we need is a few highly disciplined and trained armed officers responsible for each district.  Secure gun cabinets should be located at each district station where police weapons should be safely stored when not in use.  That way, when an incident occurs, regardless of location, the chances are that there will be an armed response unit in the district and able to assist promptly.

        Most of the police in England work unarmed, although there are armed units for each borough.  Cayman is a very small (76 square miles) with roughly 1 officer for every 148 people – compare that to 1 officer for every 430 people in England (94,251 square miles).  If the police in England can (as a general rule) manage without guns then I am sure we can do the same thing here and with implementation of armed units for each district, I am sure this would in itselflead to more effective policing of these ever-increasing gun crimes.

        Finally, some decent border patrols to stop the weapons from being smuggled in in the first place would perhaps have prevented these incidents long ago had they been properly implemented.

         

  12. Anonymous says:

     Yes and I hope this Special Task Force is not run by the Specialist crew who are now running the RCIPS what a "stellar" Job they are doing? I just hope another bunch of Draconian Measures are not thought or draft up to further alienated the community I recall we have been here before and the draconian measures obviously had absolutely no effect. Continually ignoring the underlying social issues and Beefing up security are a receipe for disaster How Much more money are we going to waste. More boats more cars more personel more equipment more laws 354 Police population 50,000 1 police man to 141 come onnn Something is seriously wrong here.

    • Twyla M Vargas says:

      I  HAVE A QUESTION FOR THE COMMISSIONER OF POLICE.

      Publicly I am asking, would you seek out resigned officer SHAWN, and ask him to consider comming back to the force.   If you know how good this man is for the Force you would think about asking him to come back.  What is important is the good moral he expelled.   A hard worker and an honest worker.   If you have a business and your employees feel good with you, they are going to produce the best, they will work over time and dont watch the clock.   This is the kind of moral we want to feel within the service.   We need Shawn back.

  13. Anonymous says:

    I agree Mac as long as its remit includes investigating corruption in government. Do you agree ?

  14. I thought we already had one of those!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DTF… USG???? WTF!!!!

  15. Sir Henry Morgan says:

     

    Finally! A good idea from Big Mac! I just hope he follows through ASAP!

  16. A YOUNG CAYMANIAN!! says:

    LOL!!!