Crime-cutting efforts ‘not bearing fruit’

Government has been harshly criticised for its efforts in trying to bring the crime situation under control.

And the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) has called on Prime Minister Mia Mottley to fire Attorney General Dale Marshall and Minister of Home Affairs Edmund Hinkson if they cannot find a solution to the worrying trend.

The party made the call in a press release Tuesday, in which it claimed that none of the initiatives implemented by the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) had worked.

The DLP’s criticism comes on the heels of Sunday morning’s shooting death of 46-year-old Eton Uncle Lyken.

Lyken, formerly of Beckles Road, St Michael, was shot in the head during an attempted robbery at Country Road, St Michael. The father of four was the 23rd murder for 2019.

“The DLP continues to be saddened by the carnage that is currently being experienced in Barbados. The ease and frequency with which human life is taken away cannot be accepted as the new normal state of affairs in our country.

“If there are efforts being made to curb this situation, we are unhappy to say that those efforts are not bearing fruit. The DLP is once again calling on the Prime Minister Mia Mottley to mandate her Attorney General and Minister of Home Affairs to come up with workable solutions to stem the killings that are now too frequent in this country or remove them from their posts. Barbados deserves nothing less,” the DLP charged in the release.

The DLP also contended that while there had been charges that the escalated violence was due to gang violence, that had not always proved to be the case.

“The country has been told that killings are due to gang warfare. While there may be some element of this activity, a glib statement to this effect is unhelpful, for there is patent evidence that this cannot explain away what is happening.

“A man selling bread, robbed and shot was not a consequence of gang violence. A man sitting in his car having a conversation with a friend, robbed and shot to death was not an incidence of gang violence. Persons losing their lives at the hands of members of their household has nothing to do with gang warfare,” the DLP maintained.

“Barbadians have come to recognise that they may be the victims of violence in their homes, in their business places, while shopping or just on the street. There is no safe place. This is having a negative effect on our people and is changing the character of Barbados.”