The Tribune

ACTING Commissioner of Police Anthony Ferguson announced yesterday the establishment of two separate Royal Bahamas Police Force anti-crime units aimed at eliminating gang activity in the country, reducing the number of homicides as well as safeguarding the residents of Fox Hill.

During a walkabout in Fox Hill on Tuesday, Acting Commissioner Ferguson said the Anti-Gang and Firearms Tracing and Investigation Unit will operate out of the Central Detective Unit (CDU) while the Rapid Response Unit will be stationed in Fox Hill.

Acting Commissioner Ferguson said he is certain these new units, as well as “new strategies” the RBPF has developed over the past few days, will reduce the number of violent crimes in Fox Hill.

His comments came one day after Fox Hill residents called for more “effort” on the part of the RBPF. In the span of less than a week, two teenage boys, 17-year-old Mitchell Munroe and 16-year-old Jeffrey Wright, both Fox Hill residents, were murdered near their homes.

In late August, a man was shot and killed following an argument between a group of men in the area. The deceased, who The Tribune was told is Rahajgio Wright, was shot several times and died on the scene.

Two weeks earlier, a 32-year-old man was shot multiple times and killed during a drive-by shooting in front of his home on Johnson Terrace in Fox Hill. Police said the victim was getting out of his car shortly after arriving home when persons in a vehicle opened fire on him before speeding off in an unknown direction.

A week before that officers conducted a walk-about in the community gathering information and giving residents safety tips.

Fox Hill has been described by police as one of the major crime hotspots on New Providence.

“Recognising the recent murders that have been taking place in the Fox Hill community my senior team and I decided that we should come into the Fox Hill area along with other members of the operational team to assure the residents that the police are up and about and we are cognisant of what is going on and the police are in the community,” Acting Commissioner Ferguson said.

“We want to assure members of the community that we will be here and continue to make sure this area is safe for persons to visit and play. I also want to take this opportunity to say to members of the public that effective immediately we instituted a unit in the CDU, working out of CDU, which is the Anti-Gang and Firearms Tracing and Investigation Unit. We recognise that a lot of these persons who are moving about are involved in gang activity so we instituted this unit because we believe we need to bring some focus to these criminal elements that are running around here.

“We have also instituted a unit known as the Rapid Response Unit and as you see these are the officers that are all geared up in the fatigues. That unit will bring focus to what we intend to do. It will really be inserted into the heart of the criminal element, whenever they assemble we will clear the area to make sure the criminal element is not present anymore. So as of today, (Tuesday) that unit will be operating here in Fox Hill, we intend to really prevent persons from using this area from selling drugs, from moving around with drugs from shooting persons. That unit, in our view, will do exactly what it is intended to do and there are other units that I will not talk about but they are there.”

The community’s former MP, Senator Fred Mitchell, has frequently sounded the alarm over what he calls the community’s deteriorating security condition.

In one of the historic community’s darkest moments, four were killed in a drive by shooting in Fox Hill in late 2013. Several others were injured at the time. Mr Mitchell was then the area’s representative.