The Tribune

POOR Dr Bernard Nottage, Minister of National Security, whose PLP became the government in May 2012 with the promise that if elected it had all the secrets for reducing — if not eliminating — crime.

Today, three years later, Dr Nottage is desperately looking to place the blame on someone, anyone, but the PLP, for stealing his party’s secret anti-crime formula. His government has failed in its promise— crime continues to escalate. The formula has disappeared.

In the House of Assembly last Wednesday, he cried for public understanding and even a pat on the back for giving the island a short respite from murders the previous week.

“What is interesting,” said Dr Nottage, “is that last week there was a period where we didn’t have any murders, and I didn’t hear anybody say, ‘Oh, you all are doing a good job, we don’t have any murders. But as soon as somebody goes down…”

Yes, as soon as murders go down they expect praise. But as Dr Duane Sands has rightly pointed out, it is the medical skill of the doctors and nurses that has helped keep crime figures under 200 and victims out of the morgue. As of last night the murder count stood at 110. According to Dr Sands’ count, if all the persons shot had not been saved by skilled doctors on the operating table, the murder count today would be well over 200. So it’s no thanks to the politicians — it’s the doctors and nurses who are doing their jobs.

Dr Nottage made his plea for understanding in the House on Wednesday, September 16. It is true that the previous week, no one was killed, but there still was crime.

Now let’s look at a typical scene. On Thursday, September 17th - 7pm Golden Gates - woman held up at point of gun and her car stolen. At 11pm - Emerald Gardens, Cow Pen Road - man standing in front of his home, shot in leg by passing car. Stable condition in hospital. Guns involved in both cases, but Dr Nottage would probably consider it a quiet night, because there were no deaths.

Now let’s move on to the next day, Friday, September 18th - 11:30am, at a construction site in the exclusive residential area of Palm Cay resort, a Haitian shot dead as he demanded his pay. At 1pm, an armed robbery - gun involved, but no death.

Now we move on to Saturday. The crime spree started at 4am on Madeira Street - a man shot. He died in hospital. At 8pm - a man shot, but in hospital in stable condition. An hour later at 9pm, a man standing in front of his home in Kennedy Subdivision, was shot and robbed of his car. He is also in hospital.

And then shortly before 1pm yesterday — Sunday – a man standing in front of his Eneas Street home when a gold coloured Honda with four men armed with hand guns pulled up, shot him and sped off. He died in hospital.

As we write this it is about 11 o’clock Sunday night. It is usually between this time and midnight that, an alarm rings on our computer notifying us that a message is coming through from the police — usually it’s notification that they are rushing to another murder scene. So far there has been no alarm, so, if nothing happens between now and press time we can consider Sunday, with only one death, a quiet night - but no thanks to the politicians.

Now who is to blame for making it impossible for the PLP to keep its crime free promise to the nation?

Today, according to Dr Nottage, the judiciary is to blame. This has stirred our bewigged colleagues into verbal action. They quite rightly point out that it is the parliament that enacts the laws, they just administer them. This is true, but complaining that mandatory sentences are unconstitutional, the decisions of sentencing has generally been left to judicial discretion. Often in applying this discretion, the magistrates have been too lenient leaving many – including Dr Nottage – to ask if by their sentencing they are unaware of what is going on in their society.

For example, a few days ago a man was shot and killed. After his death it was discovered that he had been out on bail for some time awaiting trial on not one, but two murders. Who would even consider letting a person facing two murder charges out on bail? It was no other than the judicial system, and the exercise of discretion.

Earlier, the politicians had blamed the police. But, as far back as July 1, 2011 an exasperated Commissioner of Police had this to day:

“We just had a matter coming out of Carmichael, near Checkers. If you go back to 2010, you’d get a murder report. We arrested a man with a gun in his hand, for killing a man. Well, we did our bit, but no charges were brought against him.”

The man argued, said Commissioner Ellison Greenslade, that the shooting was in self defence.

“Well, two-three days ago, the victim’s brother comes back now and kills him.

“So you can call me a million times and say, ‘Commissioner the number is 64, what are you doing?‘ I am going to turn back to you and say, ‘Excuse me, we arrested him, we charged him, what did you do with him?‘ I mean that’s real.”

We have backed the Commissioner in complaining about our revolving door justice system. What we are witnessing today is vigilante justice. Many believe that our justice system has failed them and so they are exacting their own justice on the streets — drive-by cars, guns and bullets – then the morgue or the hospital, followed by complaining politicians.

The FNM established a gun court to move these cases more efficiently through the system and get the guns out of circulation. On coming to office, the PLP abolished the gun court and now the cases are piling up. Yet, they will moan about removing guns from the streets. Someone had better wake up quickly, stop pointing fingers and accept that they have all in some way contributed to the escalation of crime.

Why even The Tribune was at one time blamed for emphasing crime. In February 2008 all the press - but particularly The Tribune – was blamed for putting too much emphasis on crime. The complaint was that almost every day The Tribune’s headlines recorded a crime.

The critics seemed to forget that we are a newspaper and a newspaper’s job is to keep its readers informed. We would not be doing our job if we were to ignore the most worrying news of the day — crime.

As we said at the time: “The only responsible way for a society to alter newspaper headlines is to deal with the issues highlighted in those headlines.”

And so it must be recognised that in some small way the community is to blame for not uniting and assisting the police and demanding that the legal system do its job to get criminals where they belong — in jail.

But the greatest blame rests at the doorstep of this government that promised what it could not — and should have know that it could not — deliver.