New police boss expected Friday
New Police Commissioner Derek Byrne
(CNS): Derek Byrne, the new Cayman Islands commissioner of police, who was previously the assistant commissioner for An Garda Síochána (the Gardaí), Ireland’s national police service, was scheduled to arrive yesterday but apparently missed a flight connection. Byrne was expected to get down to work today at the helm of the RCIPS but will now arrive later today (Friday 4 November) from Miami. When he gets here, he faces a significant rise in gang violence, following the murder of Justin Manderson last month.
On Wednesday 2 November, police were involved in several operations aimed at clamping down on gang violence and rounding up suspects after two men opened fire at a local restaurant on Tuesday night.
The commissioner, who was confirmed in August following what officials described as a competitive recruitment process, arrives at a time when the court docket is jammed and the jail is almost at capacity. Despite the success the RCIPS has had in recent months rounding up offenders, there are still plenty of people on the streets involved in serious gang violence.
Since taking over the top job temporarily after the previous commissioner, David Baines, left the post this summer, Deputy Police Commissioner Anthony Ennis has been focusing on neighbourhood policing and has put more cops on the beat, creating more visibility. Nevertheless, in recent weeks violent gang crime has been plaguing the streets of West Bay in particular.
Arriving against that backdrop, the pressure will be on Byrne from day one. The new commissioner is the first to be recruited from outside either the Cayman Islands or the United Kingdom. Over the last eight years the Dubliner, who joined up in 1979, has headed up the Gardaí’s strategic command for serious and organised crime.
A graduate of Queens University in Belfast, Northern Island, he has also trained with the FBI in Virgina and Scotland Yard in London.
When his appointment was announced in August, Byrne said that within his first month of arriving in Cayman he would be visiting all the districts on all three islands to meet with community leaders, groups and businesses to hear first hand their concerns about policing. He said that this would inform “future strategic planning and the direction of the policing service”.
Cayman time already
There’s a good reason for Irish jokes.
Stop making the police political and let Ennis run it
Who he for?..
Baines initially held all kinds of meetings and told me personally that “90% of the criminal activity is committed by a small group of persons with whom the RCIPS is very familiar.” He then told me that “his first actions as commissioner would be to round up these individuals and quickly obtain convictions which would reduce crime significantly.”
I’m still awaiting that action to this day!
Google this guy, seems legit
Late on first day …start as you mean to go on eh ? There will be enough people hoping you fail, don’t give them ammunition
So that is why all of a sudden we are seeing police cars all over the place and raids going on throughout the entire Island!!! The new commissioner is coming so we have to impress him and show him we are working…..if we had done this right after Baines left, crime would have been at an all time low!!! Lets see how long it keeps up
Why are you complaining? If they were missing in action, that would’ve been another gripe.
Not griping 4:09p just bringing out a point, all of a sudden now we are pro active right before the new commissioner lands? Where have they all been the past 10 years?? All of a sudden we have a police force??
Be fair, it was not stated why he missed the Miami connection. I have been through there enough time to know that a delay at point of origin is going to mean you miss your connection. Give the guy a break. We will know soon enough if he is any good.