Commissioner of Police, Clayton Fernander held a press conference where he spoke about the latest string of shootings in the country and announced the formation of a gun trafficking task force which should soon be in operation. Fernander also spoke to persons who are on bail committing more crimes. He said, “the reason why the court give them bail and they’re being monitored for the Police to do just that, to know where they’re at all times. They have curfew and if they don’t honour that then we have to put them back and keep them behind bars. They are the individuals who continue to give us problems. We’ll charge them, they are charged firstly with the offence, they get bail and still continue to breach their bail something is wrong with that.”
The Commissioner also expressed his concern about the number of firearms on the streets. A man arrested in a recently shooting incident near Fort Fincastle was also involved in the shooting which resulted in the killing of four year old Kenton Seymour. He said, “we found out and we also got physical evidence collected from that scene, from that vehicle which is connected to the shooting death of the four year old who was shot at Dunmore Street. We were looking for a second individual with respect to that matter and he is presently one of the persons arrested in this incident is connected to that matter.”
Fernander says saturation patrols will be beefed up in hotspots. He told reporters that, “individuals are moving from point A to B with guns in their vehicle. The vehicle that was used in that shooting was a stolen vehicle. All the wires were pulled out, the ignition pulled down, so they hot wire the vehicle.” He went further saying, “you have the container port where thousands of containers come through there everyday and based on our intel, we believe that firearms. The record is there where we arrested persons coming right through the container port and even through our domestic area at Grand Bahama.”
In addition to the task force coming on stream in New Providence another is planned to be established in Grand Bahama.
