Action – not talk – needed to address crime frontally

n Tuesday, we reported on an interview with a mother who spoke candidly and emotionally as she described the moments before, during and after her son was shot dead while sitting in front of their home.

Rosetta King gave her account of what transpired at her Newton Crescent home when her son Ricardo Gill became the country’s 41st murder victim for the year.

Like the grieving mother, we too acknowledge that he was previously arrested. However, this does not negate the fact that he was the victim in this instance paying the ultimate price – that of his life.

As King described the death in full detail, the pain of the aching mother was evident as she lamented: “When I look, I see his face full of blood. So, I step back inside and holler out, ‘They kill muh son on my front doorstep. Oh God, they kill my child’.”

The criminal mayhem in Barbados has reached a crisis stage. The effects are not only felt by the family and loved ones of the victim but by the entire country. Some feel the emotions of a grieving parent, some are outraged, some feel unsafe, and some feel sheer despair.

The fact that the crime mentality has made its way to our public school system is very worrisome.

We all accept that there are some social ills that will remain with us until the end of time. However, as a country, we cannot turn a blind eye or hope to will the problem away. We also cannot take the approach that soundbites will appeal to the criminal element and cause them to relent. Effective strategies followed by tough actions are needed.

While it is early days yet, the formation of the National Advisory Council on Citizen Security, which was set up by Prime Minister Mia Mottley last month, will not arrest crime. While both the PM and Commissioner of Police Richard Boyce have said that the recent crimes can be traced to a select group of people, the brazen shootings in public spaces and in broad daylight have the country on edge. Added to that, two minors were caught in the crossfire in recent times.

Citizens have the right to feel uneasy. They have all right to want real solutions to this real problem. Crime is not an urban issue. There have been shootings in almost every parish in Barbados. What happened in Nelson Street, The City last month can happen anywhere else.

We agree that the crime fight is multi-pronged. Therefore, there is a place for councils, the National Peace Programme, football competitions, truces and the like. However, serious unhindered police work remains the best way to fight crime. Crime must be fought frontally on the streets.

Guns and ammunition enter Barbados through our ports of entry and entry points, the seaport and via the sea more than the airport and the air. It is therefore important to up our security checks of containers and luxury vessels entering the country.

The guns are one headache, but what about the ammunition which is being replenished? That is an instant message and challenge for port, police and customs authorities since bullets are not made in Barbados.

Does anyone, including our financial policing unit, check to see if the lifestyle and accumulative wealth of officials intimately connected with cargo entering Barbados match their legislated salaries? Does anyone attempt to connect these dots?

What is being done to harass these criminals, track their money, its source and destination, and find out if it is laundered into stores, restaurants, and other ‘legitimate’ businesses? Is their money making it into the banking system? If it is, who are the banking officials facilitating this? What is being done to link the accumulation of properties such as apartments to drug money?

It takes some diligence and concentrated legwork to connect the dots.

There must be a law-abiding, gainfully employed soul living in every community where some thug with access to a gun resides. There must be some law-abiding, gainfully employed soul residing in a community where some unemployed individual is living a visibly ostentatious lifestyle. So, is this information reaching the police? And if information is reaching the police, are they acting on it?

The government needs to appreciate that its soundbites, cliches and politicking will not take back the streets from thugs. Nor will councils, consultants, more football matches, press conferences, or walk-throughs of trouble areas.

The Barbados Police Service must lead the charge; these men and women must recapture the streets, and politicians should assist by passing strong legislation and through unbiased enforcement of said laws.