The Tribune

By TANEKA THOMPSON

Tribune News Editor

tmthompson@tribunemedia.net

A MAN was shot dead while standing in the Soldier Road area last night and three others were taken to hospital for gunshot wounds, including a reportedly drunk woman driver who was shot by police after leading officers on a high-speed car chase.

The woman tried to run two officers down with her car before she was shot, police said.

The shootings occurred in three separate incidents that took place in a span of less than two hours.

Shortly after 8pm, police said they were called to the scene of a double shooting in the Soldier Road area which left one man dead.

Assistant Commissioner Stephen Dean said a group of men were standing on the side of the road when two men approached with hand guns and fired shots in their direction.

One man was shot in his neck and back and died at the scene.

The other victim was shot in his lower back. He was taken to hospital for treatment.

The latest killing pushed the year’s murder count to 111, according to The Tribune’s records.

Police said they recorded 119 murders in 2013.

The car chase began around 7:30pm when officers from the Central Detective Unit’s Crime Scene Investigation unit noticed a silver coloured Honda Civic driving suspiciously along Bethel Avenue north.

Chief Superintendent Paul Rolle said the woman driving the car almost hit the police vehicle as it drove by, prompting officers to pursue her.

Police were able to stop her, however once officers approached, the woman is said to have put the car into gear and tried to “run over” the officer, Chief Supt Rolle said.

The woman sped off and police pursued her onto Bethel Avenue where the driver hit another car. Another officer who was at a nearby gas station saw what was happening and also approached the driver. The woman also tried to hit this officer with her car, police said.

The officer shot out the car’s tyre and hit the woman driver several times. However the driver sped off, but then crashed into another car, with a woman and her child inside, near the six-legged roundabout.

Police said the mother and child had minor injuries from the crash.

Meanwhile the driver, who tried to evade police, was taken to hospital for her gun shot wounds while her male passenger, who police said did not have any apparent gun shot wounds, suffered some injuries from the crash.

Police suspect that the woman driver and her passenger were intoxicated on drugs and alcohol.

In the other incident, police said they received reports that a woman was shot at Windsor Lane after 8 o’clock last night.

Police said she was standing outside her home with her brother when a gunman approached and shot her in her side. She was taken to hospital and is in serious condition, police said.

These latest incidents are the latest in a wave of violence.

Early yesterday morning, a man died after he was shot in the head following an argument at a night club with other men over a woman.

Last Saturday a woman in Long Island, identified by friends as Andrea Carroll, was found dead in her home with a bruise to the head. Police said her hands and feet were bound.

They are questioning a 44-year-old man, believed to be her boyfriend, in connection with the matter.

Two men were fatally shot just minutes apart in Yellow Elder Gardens on Friday. Another non-fatal shooting took place at the Marathon Mall earlier that same day.

Violent crime was a major talking point during the 2012 election campaign when the then opposition PLP maintained that it had the answers to solve the crime problem when the Ingraham administration did not.

On November 19, nearly three weeks after the National Security Council met to discuss new crime fighting initiatives, police and the government were still in a “state of reassessment” over crime, Bain and Grants Town MP Dr Bernard Nottage said.

At the time Dr Nottage, the national security minister, further admitted to reporters that he was concerned about the general feeling by Bahamians that they were not safe because of violent crime.

Dr Nottage declined to reveal the new crime fighting initiatives saying it was still the government’s position not to enlighten criminals on the measures that were proposed.