The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

ONE man is dead and two others are said to be in serious condition in hospital following a shooting in Ridgeland Park over the weekend.

Meanwhile, another man is said to be in critical condition after being shot by a police officer less than an hour after the first incident.

Concerning the triple shooting, according to police reports, shortly before 8pm on Saturday, three men were standing in front of a home on Roland Street, when the sound of gunshots were heard.

All three men were shot, and transported to hospital, where one of them died. The other two victims were said to be in serious condition.

That incident pushed the murder count to 86 for the year, according to The Tribune’s records.

Police reported that less than an hour later, officers responded to Wulff Road near Minnie Street after receiving reports of a man being armed with a firearm.

While engaging the suspect, he produced a black firearm and pointed it in the direction of the officers. The officers, being in fear for their lives, shot the suspect, who was taken to hospital in critical condition, police said.

Last week, acting Commissioner of Police Emrick Seymour praised the Royal Bahamas Police Force’s crime fighting strategies as he repeated a familiar refrain from law enforcement officials – that major crime categories continue to trend downward.

He indicated to reporters that Commissioner of Police Anthony Ferguson’s policing plan has been effective, noting a decrease in not only murders, but in other crime categories.

“At the beginning of the year the Commissioner of Police mandated to ensure that he put in place a mechanism which (is) called the Commissioner’s Policing Plan for the year which speaks to how we intend to go about fighting crime and its vices here in the Bahamas,” said the acting commissioner on the sidelines of an Interpol anti-smuggling workshop.

“For the most part, the mechanism that we have employed under the direction of the commissioner of police would have been put in place and the fact that we have seen a reduction in not only murders but a number of our crime stats is an indication that the mechanism that was put in place is in fact working. I just came out of a meeting (this morning) with the team and we meet every Tuesday morning and we are encouraged by the signs that we are seeing and we’ll continue to see going into the end of the year.”

He added: “One of the things you hear us say from time to time is that amount of crimes happening are caused by a small percentage of our population and so the vast majority Bahamian people are determined not to cause these elements of criminality to wreak havoc on the wider community and so in partnership with us all the programmes that we would have put in place in the partnership with members of the public we will continue to see a decrease in the elements of criminality.”