The Tribune

By MORGAN ADDERLEY

THE Royal Bahamas Police Force held a press conference yesterday to advise members of the public on safety tips for the holiday season, urging people not to carry around large sums of cash, wear flashy jewellery or shop alone at night.

Superintendent Shanta Knowles urged business owners to secure their operations and, if necessary, hire reputable security firms during the busy shopping period.

“With that being said we ask you to please, do not keep large sums of cash in your cash registers or your cash tins,” she said. “Make frequent deposits as you go through the day, and especially during the night when you’re closed, do not keep large sums of money in your safe or on your premises… If you don’t have surveillance systems, it’s a good idea to have them installed on your premises and for those that do have them, to make sure that they are in operation.

“If you have plans or safety measures, ensure that your staff knows exactly what it is that your plans are and how they should go about executing them should they need to. And as members of the public go about shopping, we are asking you to again not carry so much cash with you. Limit your cash, if possible use debit cards and credit cards and if for some reason those are misplaced or stolen, reach out to your financial institution as soon as possible. Those things can be replaced.”

Senior Assistant of Commissioner of Police Stephen Dean also spoke to business owners, saying police are concerned about large sums of cash being left at premises overnight, only to have the business robbed.

“So we are continuing to look at that (trend),” Senior ACP Dean said. “At the same time, we are asking businesspersons to look at the persons that they hire. Get a background check on these persons. Know your employees who you have working with you. Because we don’t want to have the implications of an inside job or inside robberies. Criminals will try to approach some employees to try to hold up the place or rob them of large sums of cash.

“(Additionally), business persons seek this time to hire police officers for private engagement. And what we are (telling) all business persons is that you cannot approach an officer to ask him to work for you. You must write directly to the commissioner of police to get that permission for any police officer to work at your business place. And the only way an officer works there is that it must be approved by the commissioner of police. It is an offence, for the officer who is found working at that place, of being unauthorised. It is an offence, by law, for the business persons who have hired these persons or who facilitate these officers to be at a place without proper authority or going through the proper channels explained today.”

Representatives from the Consumer Protection Commission (CPC) also issued a stern warning to merchants and businesses which increase their prices for goods and services during this time of the year. This includes contractors and painters.

To the public, Superintendent Knowles also said: “Wear as little jewellery as possible. Leave the expensive jewellery at home or somewhere in a secure place. Do not travel with large bags or be overloaded with bags.

“You want to make sure that you have as few big parcels as possible so that if you are approached you would be able to defend yourself from any would-be attackers. This is especially important in the busy shopping malls and at bus stops. We know that this kind of time during the year, these crooks work in groups so one will distract you while the other steals from you. So you need to be aware of that.

“Again, we ask you to try not to shop at nighttime. But if you do, shop with others. This is for safety reasons, like we say, and don’t even walk at nighttime. Try to walk in groups. Be aware of where you park your vehicles at these malls. Look for well-lit areas, and if you need to return to your vehicles and you are somehow afraid, reach out to security officers who may be in that area, and ask them to escort you to your vehicles.

“We ask you not to put packages, your valuables, on the seats of your cars. Instead, secure them in your trunks or even take them home. And when they are home do not let them be displayed to the public. Close your windows and your blinds so that persons who are passing the street won’t see them, and have an opportunity…to get into your homes,” she said.

In acknowledging that crime is a public concern and reiterating the police are working to combat it, Senior ACP Dean also said: “The reality is that this is the time when a lot of our citizens get very lax. They get in that festive mood and everybody lets their guard down, the guard that they would have up all year.”

Senior ACP Dean said police will be out in full force doing road checks and patrols this holiday season.

“We want people to be happy around this time of the year…[But] from the police perspective, we can rest assured that we are streaming down on all our office spaces, those persons who [don’t usually do] frontline policing work, they will be on the road. From senior command all the way down to Commissioner of Police Anthony Ferguson have mandated all commanders and department heads that they release all those persons to increase the patrols and police presence on the road.”

“We want to reassure the public that…we know some of the persons who tend to get involved with criminal acts around this time of the year, there are some prolific offenders who use this occasion. But we have all of them targeted, and we can tell the public that some of them are already in prison for a long time. So a number of them wouldn’t be out this time to continue with those acts.

“We will be out there in full force…we will increase those road checks, so residents in some cases may feel a level of inconvenience, but that is necessary to find those persons that are travelling in stolen vehicles…While we are talking about this, make sure your vehicles are secured too. Because we don’t want people leaving their vehicles unattended (so) you could get the vehicle stolen. Know your tag numbers.

“If you are buying a number of expensive jewellery items, please get serial number of these items, that is important for us. But most of all we can (assure) the public that we would target those persons. Over the past months and weeks we have been pulling a lot of persons into custody, particularly those persons with firearms, we have been targeting them, because firearms are used in most of these cases.”

“We want to have a good Christmas…when we look at 50 per cent of our crimes, they can be prevented should we take the necessary precautions.”