The Tribune

IN August of last year, Police Commissioner Clayton Fernander was insistent that the country would not pass a total of 100 murders. He was wrong.

At the time he said it, the murder count stood at 85 – and the 100 mark was passed before the end of September.

In the end, the tally was 128 murders in the year.

This year, back in March, he said again that the force was committed to keeping the murder count under 100 this year. The flurry of murders over the weekend preceeding Christmas and Christmas night itself have seen us pass that total too.

Murder was on the rise in 2022. The final total for this year of course we will not know until the year is out, but it seems the numbers will have dropped from that total of 128, at least we hope so.

But twice now, Commissioner Fernander has made a yardstick to be measured by, and twice now he has failed to make the mark.

If he says the same again for next year, do we believe what he says or instead say that he said this twice now and was wrong each time.

The declaration last year was particularly strange – with 85 murders already at that stage, it would have taken a huge turnaround to hold to a total of 100. Instead, it went significantly over that mark.

Why would he say such a thing? What guidance was he receiving that made him think that goal was likely? Instead, it led to people pointing it out and saying you said you would do this, and you didn’t. And now, this year again, the target has been missed.

No one made the Commissioner make such a declaration. It was his choice.

Of course, stopping murders is not as easy as saying you will do so. If it was, we would have done it long ago.

Chief Superintendent Chrislyn Skippings, at the scene of the Christmas Day murder, said it as clear as day when she said that stopping these crimes from happening is something that involves us all working together.

It takes the friend of the criminal telling them not to do it, it takes the fiancée of the criminal urging him not to go out, it takes the family members to put pressure on to live life within the bounds of the law instead of losing a life by going outside it.

We should all be doing that, working together to try to reduce crime. Know someone with an illegal gun? Call the police. Know of a drug deal going on? Let the authorities know. Hear of someone going out to commit a shooting? At the very least tell the police what area so they can saturate the area with patrols and perhaps deter the shooter if you cannot bring yourself to report them by name – although you should.

Commissioner Fernander made a rod for his own back when he set down a target that in the first instance was unlikely to be met, and in the second has failed to be met.

Murder should not be about numbers – even one is too many – but it is fair to ask the Commissioner what it was that he was going to do to ensure we reached such a target, and why that has proven to be unachievable.

Was it a matter of resources? Was it the laws themselves? Or was it simply that gang violence has been uncontainable?

Whatever the case, he set the target – he ought to speak up now we have passed that mark.