The Tribune

THE MURDER of an American visitor over the weekend has removed the rose coloured glasses from the eyes of at least one government minister. Yesterday, Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe faced the ugly facts and for once called a spade a spade — “crime in this country,” he warned, “will have a devastating impact on our economy.”

There was no talk of a drop in major crime. We feel sorry for Commissioner Greenslade who has to take shorter and shorter time frames to give crime statistics a chance to show a decline.

On April 17, he announced that in the short period between January 1 and April 15, there was a 15 per cent drop in major crime. He then denied accusations that the police were doctoring the statistics to prove that they were doing their job.

We are not among those who criticise the crime statistics. We just do not pay attention to them anymore. Having been in this business for more than 50 years, we can say — without benefit of statistics — that never before in this long period have we reported such serious crime as we have this year. It is unusual if a night goes by that someone is not shot, mugged or put in fear of their life. We thought the drug years were bad, but as far as serious crime is concerned they were nothing to what we are now going through.

Even Commissioner Greenslade had to admit on the night that one of his senior officers was shot and almost killed that crime had reached “unprecedented” levels. He called upon Bahamians to unite against the criminal.

“I make an appeal for each upstanding citizen in this country to root out this scourge of criminality,” he said.

“When criminals are prepared to take on senior officers who are armed, with this we are going into a whole new level of criminality,” he told the press at a hurried press conference that night.

That was April 10. Now, 24 days later, an American tourist, who tried to protect a woman from being mugged and her jewellery stolen, was shot and killed.

First it was an armed police officer. Now it is a tourist — this country’s bread and butter. Officials now fear that the United States will do its duty and issue a travel warning to protect its citizens from the criminals of the Bahamas.

“We need to get a handle on the serious crimes in this country or we will chart a course for devastation,” Mr Wilchcombe warned.

“We need to appreciate that yes, there is crime, but we promote tourism as our principal interest. We advertise the friendliness of our people and a safe environment.

“We cannot do that if crime is out of control,” he warned.

“Even if it is just a few men doing these things, it causes serious damage to our image and our reputation. We are just fighting our way back from a recession and are just starting to show signs of growth, this kind of thing cannot happen.”

But it will continue to happen unless Bahamians accept that crime is escalating and will continue to escalate unless they join the police to stamp it out.

Bahamians have to make the criminal feel as did the criminal who turned himself into the Philadelphia police last year when he was caught on tape in an unsuccessful attempt to abduct a child.

He said he had to turn himself in because he couldn’t “walk, talk or breathe” after the video aired on local media and ABC news.

There are too many in this community who through their silence are harbouring criminals. There are too many who know where the guns are and yet say nothing.

Crime will not be stamped out in this nation until citizens and police unite to make certain that no criminal will be able to “walk, talk or breathe” on our streets again.