Police remove a man's body from the scene after a double shooting on Monday night. Photo: Terrel W Carey/Tribune staff
By AVA TURNQUEST
Tribune Chief Reporter
aturnquest@tribunemedia.net
ACTING Commissioner Anthony Ferguson yesterday announced the establishment of a 24-hour incident room at the Central Detective Unit as police revamp crime strategies following another spate of shootings.
Two men were killed and three others, including two women, are in hospital after three separate shootings on Monday.
The deaths of the men pushed the country’s homicide count to 95 for the year, according to The Tribune’s records.
Mr Ferguson declined to confirm the total number of homicides for the year at yesterday’s press conference, instead adding that he felt the public was more concerned with preventing killings rather than counting them.
“As a result of the recent overnight shootings in the capital that resulted in two deaths,” Acting Commissioner Ferguson said, “we have revised our operational strategy effective immediately. Realising that crime is dynamic it becomes necessary from time to time to review current strategies because the criminal element is finding innovative ways to commit crime.
“Therefore, a 24-hour incident room has been set up at the Central Detective Unit. This unit will receive calls from members of the public who may have information, and this information will be managed so that the matters can be effectively and efficiently investigated.”
The acting commissioner said while he will not provide further details, the impact of the revised strategy will be “felt and seen.”
In the first shooting on Monday, a man and woman were sitting in a yard on Abner Street, Fox Hill around 9pm when the occupants of a dark coloured vehicle shot at them before speeding off. The victims were said to be in stable condition at hospital, according to police.
The second shooting took place an hour later in Palmdale. A man and woman were approached by two men armed with handguns as they were about to make a deposit at a bank on Madeira Street. The gunmen shot and robbed them of a deposit bag before speeding off in a dark coloured vehicle. The man, said to be a security guard, was pronounced dead at the scene, and the woman was listed in critical condition at hospital.
Police have not officially identified the deceased, however, The Tribune understands that he is Frederick Rigby, 44.
Yesterday, Acting Commissioner Ferguson said police had two men in custody in connection with the Palmdale shooting incident.
The final shooting occurred an hour later, shortly before 11pm, in Pinewood Gardens. According to police, a man pulled into the driveway of his home on Croton Street when the occupants of a dark coloured vehicle shot him before speeding off.
He later died in hospital.
“We feel very good in respect to where we are with our investigations,” Acting Commissioner Ferguson said at yesterday’s press conference, “but there are far too many people moving around this island with illegal and deadly weapons. You, the wider public, know exactly who they are so we are depending on you to provide this information to us before you or your families are affected.
“However the RBPF will continue to do its part, we will remain vigilant and focused therefore lawlessness and criminal behaviour will not be tolerated.”
Mr Ferguson urged the public to be vigilant and aware of their surroundings, particularly persons coming home late at night.
Persons can reach the 24-hour incident room at 502-9969, 502-9971, or 502-9904. CDU’s main line is 502-9991.
Comments
TalRussell 6 years, 7 months ago
Comrades! Seems like we can best spend the fortune the state is spending at failing to arrest the alarming growth of the crime industry - if we tried communicating with and paying the criminals and would be criminals to turn away from crime and surrender their guns, knives and cutlasses?
We can save even more of a fortune if we returned to allowing Judges to grant bail which would immediately put a stop to jailing individuals - who have not been found guilty of a crime but forced to languish up in a disgusting third world Fox Hill jail slop bucket cell?
The criminals are broken and so is our Justice System and Crime Arresting Solutions, broken.
banker 6 years, 7 months ago
It doesn't work.
A friend of mine (who once played on the national basketball or volleyball team - can't remember which) once invited me to visit his friend living on Balls Alley. Definitely not a safe place if you are carrying a cell phone or have a gold chain showing. Although Potcake -- the street guy who sells hubcaps, was crashing in a house nearby while he was recuperating from a broken leg when he was hit by a car.
So I met this denizen of Balls Alley, and he was a grifter. He had a broken front tooth, was a school dropout, and tried to get jobs to support himself. He applied at AID - the automotive place on Wulff Rd and said that the application form didn't make sense to him. And he didn't have a previous employment record. And he couldn't think of three references who were employed. That caused him to give up searching for employment. This guy figured that he wouldn't live past the age of 35 and it didn't particularly bother him. He had a P64 handgun -- made in Poland that he traded marijuana for and said that he needed the gun to survive.
This guy wasn't evil. He had no real family so to speak of. His single mother kicked him out of the house when he dropped out of school. He didn't even know his father. He said that he envied people who had to wear a tie to work. He hadn't a decent meal in awhile, and the lady that sells food out of her car trunk near the marina fence takes pity on him and feeds him rice 'n stuff in a Styrofoam container when she is going home after finishing up selling food.
I don't know how you would fix him, unless you had an unskilled job for him that he could work at while he was remediated in his literacy and social skills. There is a generation or more like him -- thousands of them. How do more than 3,000 school leavers each year find jobs in a stagnant economy?
Most Bahamians who post here, do not know the misery and human suffering that exists on the streets. I used to watch mothers in SuperValue have the clerk subtract stuff off their grocery order because they didn't have enough money to pay for everything that went through the checkout. I always paid the amount that they needed when I was behind them in line, but I often wondered "What about next week and the week after?". Guns and knives and cutlasses are real currencies for these people and they see them as important as food. Sometimes I really do despair of the country, and being away from it, makes it easy to not think about it, when everywhere I look here, people are relatively okay compared to my fellow Bahamians.
TalRussell 6 years, 7 months ago
Oh My. Comrade Banker, your rambling post is exhibiting a serious case you wearing - much too tight underpants. Are still shopping for ya underpants in the Boys Department to save a few bucks?
banker 6 years, 7 months ago
Your comments prove that all PLP's are sub human. Devoid of goodness and altruism. You see them as scum because you yourself are scum and do scummy things as PLP. You think scum. You are in the gutter, and because you cannot see out of the gutter, you think that everyone belongs there.
You have no concept of the potentialities and the basic humanity that shows compassion for those who are discarded by sub-human retards such as yourself.
This is serious business -- this crime wave in the Bahamas. This is serious business -- the poorly socialised and marginalised young men who carry guns and are not afraid to use them. And you make a joke about tight genitalia. It is par for the course. Are you drunk? Right now, you disgust me. You are no Bahamian patriot. You are definitely part of the problem, and a worse part of the problem than the young who carry guns and commit murder most foul.
TalRussell 6 years, 7 months ago
Comrade Banker, I thinks you would be the perfect replacement for most of the boring to the listening ears - on air personalities over at Guardian Talk Radio. You could call your talk show "The Tight Underpants Show with Comrade Banker". The recommended topic for your first show could be in keeping with the group you most despise - "The Children's Single Mothers!"
ThisIsOurs 6 years, 7 months ago
Don't understand why they're constantly "revamping". It's not hard to visualize a night when 10 people get shot, the plans should already be in for that and more which I don't want to speak. Not that this will happen but you prepare just in case.
All of our leaders seem to lack the basics of strategic planning. Too much election campaigning going on.
sheeprunner12 6 years, 7 months ago
A law enforcement officer lives on just about every street in Nassau ........ don't they know who the killers are on their streets???????? ........... Some of them are also on the wrong side of the Law ............ But, all of us must be vigilant and honest with crime/murder ........... Turn them in!!!!!
John 6 years, 7 months ago
In other words he is basically saying we will continue to collect dead bodies but you must now please tell us who did the killings . Then what? Persons continue to get charged with murder but never make it to trial because they get bail an an ankle bracelet then they too are murdered? And also the person who gave the police the information? Don't think so. Citizens know better.
sengli02 6 years, 7 months ago
To The Investigative Unit: Stop and frisk. Criminals do not want you to stop them, it will work to a point. If there are more than one young person in a vehicle, you have a right to stop and frisk.
For those of you who do not know what stop and frisk means? The police have a right to stop a vehicle with more than one young person in it; to do a thorough search. A Cadaver dog is a must for they can sniff out illegal contraband.
It's my take.
John 6 years, 7 months ago
Stop and frisk is the dirty white mans game used to target black persons in the US and p formerly places like South Africa. It has no merit except to intimidate the victims and make them grow angry towards the police. If there is going to be stop and frisk then also do it at the gates of Lyford Cay and Albany and old Fort Bay with the suspicion that these are where drugs, currency and guns are being smuggled. Also do it at Odessa Airport and random searches of yatchs arriving Lyford Cay, Paradise Island and The Abaco. The bottom line is someone is benefiting from crime in the Bahamas and it is not the young men who are out there lost their lives.
sealice 6 years, 7 months ago
Name the shooters " so Nassau's "Native Justice" can be carried out... Or just put a ankle tag on them that's a death sentence round here too....
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