Attorney General Dale Marshall is urging Barbadians not to panic over a recent spate of shootings and violent crimes on the island.
Marshall said he was satisfied with the work being done by the Royal Barbados Police Force (RBPF) and was confident the situation would soon be brought under control.
After recording just one murder in the first three months of the year, five men were killed between April 5 and May 5. Three of those deaths were as a result of shootings.
Dwayne Carrington’s body was found in Westbury Cemetery on April 5, on April 9, Guyanese Tamesh Ramdas was gunned down in St Joseph; Shakeem Joseph died after being shot multiple times in Richmond, St Michael on April 10, two days later Tremaine Hinds was fatally stabbed in St Matthias, Christ Church and Shamar Lynch died from gunshot wounds after being shot in the Pine, St Michael, on May 5.
The Attorney General told Barbados TODAY Government continued to do its best to stem the flow of illegal firearms into the island.
“In relation to the crime situation, I am extremely pleased with the Royal Barbados Police Force. I’m confident that they have a solid grip on it and yes, the public is justifiably concerned about the recent spike in shootings. These are things that happen in Barbados periodically, but what we need to do, we mustn’t panic, we have to stay focused and get to the root causes.
“[On] the issue of firearms, we’ve installed new scanning ability at the Port, we’ve heightened our surveillance at the other ports of entry to try to stem the inflow of guns into Barbados. But the fact is that this is a situation where firearms had been coming into Barbados for quite some time so we have to ferret those out. The RBPF has been doing an amazing job staying on top of the situation and I’m very confident in their work and in their work ethic,” Marshall told Barbados TODAY whilst at the official re-opening of the St Joseph Outpatient Clinic.
“There are still some things to be done and we’ll be speaking very soon about some new initiatives that we hope to embark on, but I think all in all we are well served by the force and they are doing a good job to ensure that our safety and stability persist.” (randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)
