The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

In April of 2012, bad boy Sheriff Perry Christie of Centreville stood up at a rally at RM Bailey Park and waved a magic wand called a Charter of Governance that he promised would fix the economy and end crime.

Crime, he said, was the fault of the FNM because Hubert Ingraham refused to carry through on Christie’s prized Urban Renewal baby. So, re-elected a month later, he dragged out Urban Renewal 2.0 and sold it as the panacea for crime. Abracadabra and wham! Crime is gone. Or not.

Five years and millions of unaccounted urban renewal dollars later our Sheriff gazes on the carnage in our streets and what comes to his mind is the Wild, Wild West. Bad analogy, Sir.

The Wild West was a new frontier and they had a fair share of shootings. But they also had the long arm of the law to enforce a prairie code of justice. And a headstrong citizenry who demanded and got action from the Federal Marshalls, the Sheriff and deputies.

We have strict gun laws in our country but lax gun control. We rightly search for bullets in hand luggage at our airports, but can’t seem to catch the guns concealed in containers entering our seaports.

We have rampageous gangs of thugs roaming the streets looking to settle petty scores by the most violent means known to them – gunfights.

Their preferred method of execution is a drive by hail of bullets that endangers the lives of unsuspecting citizens. Seven murders in one weekend tell me that Sheriff Christie has lost control of the west.

Some young people have a disdain for authority. Their value system is alien to their grandparents who respected law and order and who never harboured criminals and wanted nothing to do with the proceeds of crime.

There is a generational clash of values, of lifestyles and of priorities. Getting tough on crime must involve more than just a surge of policemen on the streets. We need a gang unit comprised of policemen who look and act like gang members. By infiltrating the gangs they will know what they are up to; when the gun shipments are coming in, and they will also know who is paying whom to look the other way.

The Commissioner of Police may already have this on his radar but perhaps we need to reach out to our friends who have had success infiltrating gangs. The Toronto Police have something they called the Integrated Gun and Gang Task Force who would welcome understudies from our constabulary.

The notorious Wild West gangster Jessie James wasn’t done in by a swarm of policemen. It was a trusted confidante, Robert Ford, who shot him dead in his own living room.

Sheriff Christie should set politics aside and see what others in law enforcement bring to the table. He could start by talking to a guy whose name rhymes with Garvin James.

THE GRADUATE

Nassau,

February 21, 2007.