Robbery spike fuels 100% crime increase
(CNS): George Town residents expressed their frustrations last week at an RCIPS meeting where Chief Superintendent Brad Ebanks revealed the year-to-date statistics on gun crime, which has doubled from last year. While some expressed fear about the escalating violent crime, others saw anti-social behaviour as the most significant problem in their communities.
There have been 47 gun-related crimes this year so far, including 31 armed robberies, more than twice as many as last year. Ebanks said that 24 robberies were in George Town. “There is no doubt that there is an increase in serious crime,” he said. “More concerning is the crimes facilitated by unlicensed firearms, in particular robberies.”
As a result, the RCISP has “embarked upon a vigorous approach” to concentrate on robberies, guns and burglaries. “So far, there have been eleven arrests and four people have been charged and remanded in custody,” Ebanks said.
Eight of those were local men, he revealed, as questions were raised during the meeting about the nationality of those committing those crimes. The RCIPS expects that several more files that are with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions will lead to more robbery charges in the near future, he said.
The meeting was facilitated by Minister Sabrina Turner (PRO) and Minister Kenneth Bryan (GTC), both George Town area MPs, to allow residents across the capital to engage directly with police about their concerns.
While people were clearly worried about safety in the face of rising gun crime, many people voiced concern about low-level criminality, such as the proliferation of illegal bars or speakeasies, gambling shops, derelict vehicles and the lack of police presence, as well as the continued failure, as they saw it, of the RCIPS to build the necessary trust in the community.
People said that officers from overseas didn’t always engage with or try to get to know the local people. They also questioned why community officers were taken out of neighbourhoods just as they had managed to settle in.
Superintendent Roje Williams, who heads up Uniform Operations, and Inspector Ian Yearwood, the head of the Community Policing Unit, explained that the RCIPS has faced some recruitment issues. While a new training class is about to start next week, it will be the end of this year or early in 2024 before the community police numbers are where they need to be.
Williams said the community policing team is down by at least 13 officers. The goal, police said, was to get at least two officers for every beat so they are always covered. The police management also revealed that there are six vacancies for community safety officers, who work with and support the community police team but are not full police officers.
Williams explained that with the surge in robberies, some officers have been diverted to help with those investigations. But he said that police officers are working overtime and uniform officers are on the streets.
Yearwood said the community officers are doing what they can to tackle the low-level crime and the ‘broken window principle’, where police officers are going into the community to warn people about anti-social behaviour. He said they were clamping down on people failing to transfer ownership of vehicles as well as drug dealing and noise issues that are disturbing communities.
However, a number of people living in areas such as Windsor Park said that time and time again, this was where the police have failed. A number of people said that despite reporting and even assisting in removing derelict vehicles from their neighbourhoods, no one has ever been charged over this type of offence.
People also said that when they make reports about where drugs are being sold or other illegal activity is taking place, the police don’t respond or appear to press charges. The long-held concern about the lack of trust between members of the community and the police was also raised, and many people still believe the police give away their identities when they make reports about crime, putting them at risk of retribution.
The police were urged by one local business owner in the George Town Central area to get to know the people in the community and to make the effort to talk and engage with people. If they do, the community will get to trust them and be more helpful in sharing what they know about more serious crimes.
Another resident of Windsor Park said that while the police ask them for help, until they build that trust and stop letting communities down, they can’t expect the people to put themselves at risk.
The issue of the number of non-Caymanian officers in the police was also raised by people in attendance at the meeting and supported by Minister Bryan, who encouraged young Caymanians to sign up for the RCIPS.
As he summarised some of the issues brought up during the meeting, Bryan said the matter of trust was brought up four times. “This is a constant ongoing matter, one that I recognise has been a discussion for some time,” he said. “This is the unfortunate problem of having transient workers within the police force. We need to have more Caymanians in the police department.”
Bryan said he hoped more local people would apply, despite the stigma involved in policing your own people. But he said the pay was pretty good, and it was an honourable job to help keep society safe.
See the meeting on CIGTV below:
- Fascinated
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Bored
- Afraid
Category: Crime, Crime Prevention
one thing about jamaican nationals working as cops in our country. the come from a corruption force in jamaican. so in our country they are practicing the corruption here .
What about the “fishermen”that come from Honduras to work construction illegally while living on their boats?! All the while claiming to have boat issues but really living on their cousin’s dock? It’s happening all over the island, especially in Prospect and North Sound Estates!!!
Which fishermen you mean child rapist and drug and gun traffickers and wanted fugitives who blend right in with our community and never have any immigration issues whatsoever cause they got two three cousins or spouses in either CBC or WORC. You know how it goes??
How can this be? Didn’t ww just promote half a dozen officers to Deputy Chief Superintendents or something?
No Superintendent Brad Ebanks it’s CORRUPTION in our government that is fuelling 100% on this Crime situation.
It’s not just recruitment. It’s also retention. It’s much easier and cheaper to retain officers, than to have to address shortfalls with green recruits.
I hope they can actually attract some good officers to the service, it badly needs them to support the minority of good ones they already have.
Exactly!
Every few months I see an article in the paper proudly proclaiming a new class of officers has graduated from “cop school” Where do they go? Why do they leave the job?
I can say this with sincere honestly; I was a serving officer in the RCIPS and the five officers whom I admired most, with their work ethic and integrity all left the service as they became disenfranchised with the internal rot and the absolute shambles. Their superiors almost didn’t like to see them doing their job so well cause it made the others ‘look bad’ and don’t get me started about ‘HR’ and the mess that lot where to deal with.
World is not ruined by bad people; it is because of the silence of the good people.
Baby brain view of reality. Bad people do bad things regardless of good people.
If they are silent then they are complicit, and therefore not good.
Please don’t connect criminal or criminal activities or illegal activities with color, nationality or religion which is not good for good community.
Profiling works, that’s why it’s done.
But it doesn’t in fact work. Ppl say alot of goofy stuff on here without fact checking themselves. It’s weird.
which ethnicity commits a disproportionate amount of crime?
Caymanian, usually with Jamaican or central American ties.
Mass status grants coming home to roost.
Probably unlawful and potentially corrupt, un-investigated status grants coming home to roost.
You never investigated any of them, did you RCIP? Not even the ones who didn’t live here.
Dim witted Cayman girls with low or zero self esteem having babies every nine months for worthless men, foreign and local, coming home to roost, 1:20.
Where’s the agovernor? She’s the one n charge of this.
Juliana promised us local production of mariijuana in her campaign as a last minute effort to deal a blow to Elvis
Give us legal recreational weed. There’s so much economic ( agriculture, retail, tourism, science jobs) and medical benefit that it makes it obvious people keep it illegal to prevent competition. Paper, medicine, tobacco and alcohol industries along with racist politicians have pushed propaganda against cannabis for a century. “Speakeasies” – what year is it?
Yes there’s a treaty but if uncle sam can let his children break the “rules” at school then so can we.
Distrust in RCIPS competency has been earned over time. It’s not won back via officer nationality, or personal introductions, it’s won back through action that restores faith and confidence. It shouldn’t matter where the officers hail from, so long as they are honest to begin with, smart enough to understand the objectives, and take action to enforce all the libraries of laws that aren’t being enforced, both when in uniform and out. Hundreds of full time officers are on payroll, and yet we always hear that they are a dozen fresh recruits short of professional competency. Excuses like this deepen the trust gap, because it reads like the most seasoned senior officers don’t know what they are supposed to be doing, are disinterested in stepping-up, and unable to train-up new recruits. Audibly confirming this bureaucratic dysfunction is a further green light for criminality, that criminals are betting on and winning.
In the enchanted land of Saudi Arabia crime is extremely low as citizens know if you commit crime you will receive severe discipline. If you steal punishment is cuntacootay chop off hand. No Quickie Mart robberies in Saudi! Abu feels safe. Just tink about it. As the great Mark Twain once said Talk softly and carry a big stick! Cayman needs to establish the big stick of the law.
Novelist Teddy Roosevelt said something similar.
Enjoy Saudi Arabia, they’d love to have you!
*Claps forearms together
Anyone that thinks the Saudi punishment system is ignorant or oblivious to the human rights violations or a fan of say, cutting a journalist into many pieces.
It behooves me to say that you appear to have a negative attitude! As the great Mark Twain once said Don’t dis it til you try it.
I’ve lived here my whole life and, thankfully, have never faced a threatening or violent situation. And I’ve only ever been robbed or ripped off by men with OBEs and MBEs.
I have had my chain snatched which I had from childhood that my mother bought for me while we were on vacation. Was very sentimental to me.
The rozzers need to catch the front plates thieves. Missing front plates are disappearing left and right.
Silver chain? I’ll give you one dollar.
Ah…..I see what you did there on your Dreadlock Holiday.
I’ll take “Things that never happened” for $500, Alex.
No one gets a joke on CNS. Not even 10cc’s worth…
How about stopping them being released after 4 years. Armed robbery should carry a mandatory 15 year sentence with no early release.
Why take ownership and clean up your own yard, when you can blame Jamaicans for all your problems…
Props to the person(s) who write these articles on CNS. They’re very objective and to the point and leave out editorialization. Genuinely good journalism.
Oh dear, the inconvenient truth. 8 local men arrested for armed robberies. Doesn’t fit with the narrative that all crime is committed by people who come from overseas on fake work permits.
well, I’m sure they learnt how to behave from their cousins in jam or Honduras.
OOORRRR maybe we have our own issues with education, poverty, home support and opportunity? crazy I know, we might be responsible for our own problems!
8 of 11 – and I am willing to bet there is a status grant or absent expatriate father in the immediate background of many of the so-called “locals.”
Caymanians committing crimes, Caymanians complaining about foreign officers.
How exactly will more Caymanian officers make things better?
we need more officers from the UK
We tried that. Increasing interdepartmental racism did not translate into more arrests, just class action settlements.
Minister Bryan speaking on the issues of crime and policing…
…I guess he has firsthand knowledge.
The irony of Kenny boy talking about an honourable job. The man wouldn’t know the meaning of the word.
it seems to be the one thing that he has on the ground experience with 🤷♂️does he have a degree in political science?
How did he end up a an MLA? And why should anybody have confidence in his ability to do anything effectively and efficiently?
I don’t know the man and I have nothing against him or people getting second chances but what has he done to earn a spot as an MLA? wouldn’t the people of cayman be served better if there where strict detailed criteria regarding who can run for politics? I’d have a lot more respect for Kenny if he himself led the charge for raising the standards of our political representation. Even if it meant he could never run again. That’s what real leaders do. Make sacrifices for the people they say they care about…
We can do better.
Im curious. What nationality are Caymanians referring to when they say non-engagement/trust in non-Caymanian officers? Do you mean Jamaican, British, or other nationalities? Genuinely curious.
Yes.
Its CaymanKind to place blame on everyone but Caymanians for crimes and such, and its CaymanKind to ignore the fact that the majority of crimes here are home grown.
#CaymanKind
Jamaicans and the Filipinos. Don’t you see the Filipinos are becoming the number one fraudsters here?
I thought Webb held that title.