The Tribune

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sdorsett@tribunemedia.net

FORMER Deputy Commissioner of Police Marvin Dames yesterday pledged that the Free National Movement (FNM), if elected, will empower the National Intelligence Agency and “saturate crime hot spots” in order to curb the growing murder rate.

On the heels of the country’s latest double homicide, Mr Dames told The Tribune that “putting more boots on the ground” in areas like Yellow Elder Gardens is the only way to effectively reduce crime.

Mr Dames is the FNM’s candidate for Mount Moriah, and has been tapped by the party as a front runner for the post of National Security Minister.

However, Arnold Forbes, the current MP for Mount Moriah said the answer to reducing the violence in Yellow Elder Gardens is to “re-socialise our young men.”

Since January, there have been four murders in Yellow Elder Gardens. Police found the bodies of two teenaged boys on a dirt road there early yesterday morning.

At the scene, Mr Dames said: “I was campaigning up in this area, about a week ago, and I had a conversation with a young man and he was extremely passionate and he said ‘Mr Dames you know something, since 2014 in this area we would have had some 22 young men that would have lost their lives.’ It really came home for me because as I walked into the homes of some of these persons I see memories in these homes, something I have never seen before.”

“There is no way in the world this should be happening,” Mr Dames said.

“We just had three homicides in this area in the last few weeks and now we are here observing the police cart two more bodies away. We need better intelligence, we need more concentration in terms of boots on the ground in hot spot areas like this. There is no way in the word we ought to have recorded so many murders in this little community.

He continued: “It should never happen. What are we doing in terms of presence and visibility? How are we drawing on our intelligence to tell us what is causing this? We will create a robust National Intelligence Agency to be proactive in determining what is causing these incidents to take place so frequently.”

However, Mr Forbes countered that police saturation patrols will not stop “a man who is hell bent on killing another man”. “What we need to do is re-socialise our people,” Mr Forbes said, “that’s the key to it, educate and re-socialise our people.”

“Police saturation has its place but is that the solution to the crime problem in the Bahamas? That is the question and my belief is, it is not.

“What is,” Mr Forbes said, “is re-socialising our communities, we need to look at the way we bring up our children, we need to look at how we solve our disputes and how we treat each other as human beings. I believe that is what really needs to take place.

Mr Forbes said: “We need to look within ourselves as a people and look within our homes. The sad fact is a lot of these individuals who are committing these murders have not been socialised, they do not know how to act or behave themselves with others and it is as basic as that.”

The country has recorded 36 murders for the year, according to The Tribune’s records. During the current PLP administration there have been 605 murders in the Bahamas according to The Tribune records.