The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

WHILE acknowledging the country is facing a crime crisis, National Security Minister Wayne Munroe said yesterday he is hoping to meet with judiciary officials this week to discuss ways to speed up criminal cases as a part of their crime fighting strategies.

 “The commissioner has expressed when he was sworn in that we wish to have firearm matters tried within two weeks of the person being arraigned,” Mr Munroe said yesterday.

 “The police control the process of most of the witnesses being police officers (and) have been assured that the firearms can be examined within that period to meet that performance deadline and we’re going to discuss that happening.”

 In recent weeks, numerous alleged offenders who have been released on bail have been murdered, while some have been posted on wanted police posters for suspected murder or other serious crimes.

 Mr Munroe was asked yesterday whether the country was facing a crime crisis and his ministry’s plans to address the issue after another six people were killed in shooting incidents last week, including a mother and son.

 These deaths have pushed the country’s murder toll to 107, according to The Tribune’s records.

 If this trend continues, The Bahamas will surpass last year’s homicide count which stood at 119.

 “It is a crisis,” Mr Munroe said. “Everything is a crisis. You have a health crisis. If you put on ten pounds, that’s a crisis.”

 However, he noted that a crisis also breeds opportunities.

 “We look at what is happening as an opportunity, and I hope the public is looking and watching and understanding that we raise these people. I hope the people of my generation are looking and watching and seeing how quickly things have changed,” Mr Munroe said.

 “In my lifetime, we have moved from a police (officer) not having guns to now the commissioner and I are looking at every policeman having to have a gun. That is where we have come and I am only 54 and so in 54 years, we have come to this point.

“And I hope the Bahamian people look at it, those of us with sufficient memory to see why we didn’t think it was our right to shoot people. Why we didn’t think it was our right to stab people and get that into the minds of the 15 and 25-year-olds who see no difficulty in doing it to them?”

 In the meantime, Mr Munroe said police will continue to do their jobs by catching those responsible and bringing them to justice.

 He added: “We will put you before the court and we’re going to be meeting with the chief justice and chief magistrate in this upcoming week to discuss ways to expedite the judicial process, but until people decide that they are not interested in killing anyone and until we decide to influence people to stop killing, it will happen but the police will get you and we will put you before court and in short order we hope to expedite that trial process.”

 When asked about the likelihood of faster trials when considering the case backlogs already facing the courts, Mr Munroe said he had suggestions and recommendations he intended to share with judiciary officials this week.

 For his part, Police Commissioner Clayton Fernander said while officials were concerned about the rising murder toll, he didn’t believe the nation was in a crisis.

 “As you note in recent times, the crime report we continue to arrest and bring individuals into custody who are found in possession of unlicensed firearms and they are being put before the court,” he said.

 “Even the matters, the murders that occur and the results, you could see that we are arresting individuals for them and putting them before the court - but we want to be able to prevent these murders from happening.”

 He also expressed disappointment that the force was not able to achieve its goal of keeping the murder count below 100.

 “We tried and as I said, we can’t stop everybody,” the police chief added. “That was our goal, but we were not able to accomplish that but we’re going to continue and I don’t believe in counting numbers. The bottom line is we want to save some of these young men from the life of crime.”

  The highest murder count The Bahamas has ever recorded was 146 in 2015.