The Tribune

A MAN was shot dead in Grand Bahama yesterday evening pushing the country’s murder count to 137 for the year, according to The Tribune’s records.

Police said they were called after gunshots were heard in the area of Redwood Lane around 6pm. Responding officers found a man, wearing dark clothing, lying in the street with gunshot wounds in his body.

The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police in Grand Bahama said they had no motive for the shooting and did not release the victim’s identity.

The killing brought Grand Bahama’s murder count to 18 for the year.

On November 23, a man was found shot dead in a vehicle parked at an abandoned building complex in Freeport.

Inspector Terecita Pinder said police were called to a vacant apartment complex on Drumfish Drive in Caravel Beach, where they discovered a man in a white vehicle with gunshot wounds to the body.

That victim has been identified as Kareem Abdul Moss. Two men were charged in Freeport’s Magistrates’ Court on Monday with his murder.

In November, Police Commissioner Ellison Greenslade told reporters he was “not surprised” by the nation’s rising murder count, adding that he had predicted months ago that the country would continue to have problems if certain changes were not made.

“I’m not surprised,” he said. “Despite our best intentions, I foreshadowed this many months ago when I gave you an interview and I said if we do not change our trajectory – not the police department – but if we didn’t change generally as a country, look at some policy issues, some legislative reforms issues and some other initiatives, we were going to continue to have problems.”

He added: “When we arrest persons in possession of an AK47 type weapon, an illegal firearm with ammunition and clips…we have to ensure as a people, all of us, that we say, the line has been drawn in the sand and if law enforcement has done due diligence, we must now ensure that those people cannot reoffend and kill people.”

“There are some things that need to be fixed, other than arresting people, other than taking bad people off the streets on a given day,” the commissioner said. “I cannot make a bad person who has committed murder, is intent on doing it again, I cannot make him or her change. What I can do is what I have done again this morning, not for the first time, arrest them and take them before the halls of justice and I’m asking that they are not allowed to return to the streets to continue to kill people and to continue to possess guns and travel with drugs.”