Violent crime has community in fear
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Armed police officers were in position near West Bay’s Cemetery Beach Friday night, checking cars as travellers headed home for the night.
Residents wondered if the roadblock was in response to another crime that had occurred, but according to the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service, it was a part of scheduled operations.
“It was just police stepping up patrols,” said RCIPS Chief Inspector Frank Owens.
Police had promised to be more visible in the Grand Cayman community following a string of robberies and other crimes within the past two weeks.
Since 11 August, there have been six armed robberies and one attempted robbery in central George Town alone. A shooting in West Bay and a stabbing along Seven Mile Beach were also reported late last month.
Those incidents were followed last week by shots fired into a George Town home, a car jacking outside a West Bay tourism facility, and what appeared to be an attempted killing near a public stadium.
The string of violent robberies and attacks led one member of Cayman’s Legislative Assembly to declare the crime situation a ‘national crisis’.
Dolphin Discovery
A car jacking outside a Cayman Islands tourism business Thursday night was followed by the stabbing and robbery of a man near a crowded West Bay sports stadium.
“{Crime] is really just getting worse,” said a manager at Dolphin Discovery, where the car jacking victim worked. The manager did not wish to be identified because he feared retaliation against himself and members of staff.
According to witness reports, a 30-year-old woman was walking to her car in the Dolphin Discovery car park on North West Point Road when she was confronted by two men – one of whom was carrying a firearm.
Police officers said the suspects threatened the woman and that she handed over her car keys and handbag. The men then got into the robbery victim’s car and drove off.
The woman was not physically hurt, police said. The attack happened around 6.20pm.
Staff at Dolphin Discovery said the woman, an office worker at the tourist attraction, had just left for the day and was set upon in the back parking lot near the facility’s loading dock.
According to their reports, two men who appeared to be fishing along the iron shore at the back of the parking lot approached the woman, who had her laptop computer taken by them as well as her purse and car.
A CCTV camera located in back of the complex recorded the attack and is being reviewed by police, the facility’s manager said.
The vehicle, a Toyota Marino, was located a short distance away on Bonaventure Drive by the RCIPS helicopter crew.
The suspects in the robbery are described as thin, dark-skinned and wearing black clothes. One of the men was around 5’8” tall, the other about 6’ tall, police said.
Ed Bush attack
Police said it was around 7.10pm Thursday when a 30-year-old man was assaulted near the Ed Bush playing field by two men and his white rental Hyundai Atos taken. The man was stabbed in the chest and shoulder and also struck in the face with what police said appeared to be a firearm.
The victim ran from his attackers and was subsequently shot at, police said. He was not hit by the gunfire.
The 30-year-old – a local resident – was later taken to the hospital where his injuries were found to be not life-threatening, police said.
A quick search of the surrounding area located the stolen Hyundai and led to the arrest of a 40-year-old man on suspicion of robbery. The second attacker was not immediately found.
The West Bay Scholars football team was practising on Ed Bush field around the time the shooting occurred, but police do not believe any of the athletes or spectators were in direct danger from the gunfire.
Shots hit house
No one was injured, but residents said a man, woman and their two children were inside a home on McField Lane in George Town Wednesday when shots were fired into a window there.
At about 10.50pm Wednesday, the occupants of the house heard what they believed to be two gunshots. They then found holes in a window of their house and contacted police.
Police officers recovered bullet fragments from inside the home.
Residents in the area reported hearing two shots around 11pm Wednesday.
“We could have got a stray bullet in our bed,” said one woman who didn’t wish to be identified. “It’s not good, somebody should do something about this crime rate here.”
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Hey Cayman, remember that Dark Cloud I said was over the Island; well it should be an Eclipse by now !!! How many more People need to be Killed or Assaulted before Martial Law or some other Equally unpleasant State of Emergency is Declared ??? Does the Governour need to bring Royal Marines or Commandos to Caymans Shores to make People feel Safe again ? The RCIP needs to take a way more Agressive Stance against the Hoodlums that are Wrecking the Island. Remember, there is one thing that Criminals understand Loud Clear: FORCE !!!
The RCIP Court System need to make the Lives of Offenders INCREDIBLY UNPLEASANT if You want to See the Crime Problem go away. You need to Deport the Thugs who Disguised Themselves as Construction Workers after Ivan, THEN became the Heart Soul of Your Crime Wave ! Send them back to Jamaica to Continue Destroying that Island; don’t let them stay and Destroy Cayman like they do every other Place they go !!! Does this Sound Prejudiced, of Course it does ! This is the Voice of Experience Talking to You, and I Suggest You Listen REAL HARD to the Sounds of You Island Dying !!! Hey Cayman, do You want to Live in Fear ? Then Do Something about it ! Hey McKeeva, its time for You to start Earning Your Paycheck by showing a thing Called Leadership….this seems to be in Short Supply on Cayman !!! Remember My Caymanian Friends, ONLY YOU can take back Your Island !
I agreed with everything you said up til the part about You need to DEPORT the thugs… That’s where you are wrong. Statistically, most of these thugs are actually Camanian. So where exactly do you deport them to? Little Cayman? Cayman Brac? Everyone likes to blame the Jamaicans — but Cayman Compass wrote an article a while back giving the statistics on which nationalities are incarcerated. The majority were Camanians. Guess you missed that article.
Mikey
Yes, you do sound prejudiced but not because I think that you’re picking on Jamaicans; your views are very tunnelled-vision as well.
Let me fill in the missing pieces for you.
Your views would indicate that there were no criminal gangs operating in Cayman before a new influx of Jamaican gangsters after Hurricane Ivan.
Anyone with a brain in their head would know that that is entirely incorrect; there is one notorious Caymanian gang leader now locked up in Northward on a 22-year sentence who led the worse of Cayman’s gang violence from way back in the 90s, as a youth.
And the partnerships with the Jamaican posse gangs and their Caymanian gang partners date back to the heights of the drug smuggling days of the 80s and 90s.
Undoubtedly, there are Jamaican gangsters operating in Cayman but they are in partnership with their Caymanian brethren…if you know as much about the streets of Cayman as you claim, you would know this.
I have very suspicious views of anyone publicly blaming all Cayman’s woes on any one group of foreigners; it leads me to believe that those people are overlooking, excusing and possibly even covering up for the wrongs and evil that their own Caymanians are responsible for.
Of the last 6 or so murder trials, at least 4 or 5 have had Caymanian gangsters charged and there are at least 2 more murder trials pending, all with Caymanians charged.
Only a stupid person would believe that anyone other than Caymanians are committing the MAJORITY of violent crime in Cayman now.
The reason we aren’t seeing any action from the police, and an attitude of indifference from the officials whose job it is to tackle this issue is because the crimial element on this island have them living out of their pockets, paying them off to look the other way. Until we rid the island of the corruption within these offices the problem is not going to go away, but continue to spread until it is too late! The time has come for an independent inquiry into our entire law enforcment department by someone who can’t be intimidated, bribed, or corrupted and get rid of these bad apples once and for all!!!
Does this mean I should bring my real gun to Pirates Week this year? Yikes…whats going on in Cayman? We have been coming every year for 25 years. I remember when the news of the week was someone stole a drum from a band playing in town and were asked to please return it.
Several prominent police officials have Jamaican backgrounds. They and others have strangely tried to mute the obvious fact that most of this crime springs from Jamaicans and their culture. The fact that some dim-witted Caymanians have emulated these thugs does not change from whence the poison springs.
The US Dept. of State has issued a warning. If this is not stopped, Cayman will cease being a destination resort.
Firery – I think you may have been a little unfair to Mikey.
I acknowledge a lot of criminality in Cayman is truly local, but at the same time, it is clear there is a significant Jamaican element.
If I am thing of the same Caymanian Gangsta as you (locked up for 22 years) you should check his immigration background … he was born a (__________) fill in the blank. Hint – it was not Caymanian.
Here we go again…it seems like crime didn’t exist in Cayman before Jamaicans became of part of Cayman’s population.
I grew up in Jamaica so I really don’t know what Cayman’s situation was before the early 80s but when I returned to live in Cayman permanently, I saw very little of the Jamaican criminal element in Cayman at the time…and I’m more than qualified to define who and what that element is and represents.
If Cayman’s gangsters were following Jamaican criminal examples, you would need an army constantly based in Cayman, trust me on this one.
You have absolutely no idea as to how cold, bloodthirsty and murderous the real Jamaican shota is.
Cayman’s gangsters are more following the trends that they see from US televsion and movies and are mobile enough to be operating freely in a very small island.
If you want Jamaica to help solve your problem with Cayman’s gangsters, petition the British Govt. to lend you a squad of the Jamaica Defense Force soldiers who patrol the streets of Jamaica…
The JDF is an arm of the British Army so that would not be unfeasible.
I guarantee you, your problem with both Caymanian and Jamaican gangsters would be over in a very short time.
What puzzles me is why these criminals find it worthwhile to carry out crimes which, let us face it, do not seem to yield much in the way of money or valuable goods. What are they living on? who are they living with? Whose fine life style are they supporting?- doesn’t seem to be their own. Is there really enough money in Cayman to buy illegal drugs to support these criminals and gangs?
We were transferred here by one of the major world companies and we fell in love with the islands. The people were hospitable, gentle and kind. Crime was unheard of!
Four years later we were transferred to Jamaica and the crime had just begun to get going. I was seconded to the local head office of my company and travelled to several countries to see what we could do to stem the attacks on local banks and businesses. We put a lot of what we learned into action and there was a decrease in the attack on commercial businesses.
Unfortunately attacks on homes and individuals then began to inctease. Friends were beaten up, killed and robbed in our case the local police did not even bother to invetigate, they just had too much on their hands they said.
We had two young children so we decided to return to Cayman or paradise as we called it then.
Now the same problems have caught up with us here. The children are still with us, all be it grown up and so we now have to worry about the next generation.
We still think this is a great place, the Caymanians who befriended us in our time of need are still kind and thoughtful to us, but we now have an element that is rude , uncouth, mannerless and lets face it downright awful. The sad part of it is that they could not find work in their native land and came here looking for a better life, but they have brought their boorish ways with them and our youngsters absorb it like a sponge.They give no thought to the people who extended the hand of friendship to them.They remind me of Aesops Fable about the man who extende a helping hand to a wounded snake which when it recovered attacked and killed him.
I pray that God will bless you all and protect those kind Caymanians who helped us in our time of need when we had no where else to go.
I don’t know if the criminals here imitated Jamaican criminals, and I could care less if they did… What most concerns me, is the lack of discipline in our schools and in the home. Whilst we fight crime, we have to think about prevention and education as well. Many youngsters don’t know how to cope with peer pressure and domestic disturbances in the home. Their minds are fickled and they have no one to guide and discipline them the right way. No… no… whilst we talk about Jamaican criminals and our adult ones here, we should be looking out (more than ever) for our little ones and those who want to truly rehab themselves. If we don’t think prevention, then for every one step we take, we are taking two steps backwards.
There is definitely another side to this dilemma of the current crime and social conditions in Cayman and we cannot look at one, without taking an honest look at the other.
To continue in the vein of my last comments on this topic…
When the CI Government and business community chose to adopt the path to financial prosperity back in the early 80s, that they did, they opened Pandora’s Box, of which they knew nothing of what was inside.
Again, from personal experience, I can be totally honest to say that when the economic planners decided to go the ‘cheap labour’ route for quick prosperity is when they laid the foundation that both the posters I’m responding to are commenting on.
Without a doubt, an undesirable element of the Jamaican, Honduran, Phillipino, Canadian, British and any other nationality that came for ‘cheap labour’ jobs was imported into the fabric and culture of the Caymanian society and has definitely contributed to the current situation.
In the case of Jamaica, of which I can speak with authority, this was absolutely the case but not just recently…a distinctly undesirable element of Jamaican society began to be integrated into Cayman from the mid 80s onward; I was always aware that the Caymanians did not know some of these people’s backgrounds as they had little intimate knowledge of the country of Jamaica itself, so how could they know its people ?
As long as someone came smiling, with a ‘good face’ and agreed to work for pennies, they were granted a job and work permit, with their employers (and the Immigration Dept btw), laughing all the way to the bank, thinking they had gotten the better of the deal until…
This trickle of ‘ghetto people’ (read that as ‘cheap labour’)became a steady flow and then an overwhelming tide.
Now Cayman is dealing with the consequences of chasing the almighty dollar at the expense of developing their own people and society in their own, unique cultural mode.
It would have cost more initially to develop Caymanians properly in the crucial areas of education and vocational skills training but the benefit is long-term investment in your country and its people and…
In that respect, that same neglected element of Caymanians would not now be in alliance with the undesirable element of other nationalities, particularly from Jamaica, which was initially forced upon them and now tearing the country apart.
Because we knew these people quite well, those of us Caymanians who have strong ties, family and otherwise, to Jamaica, recognised the problems that were materialising but our voices went unheard when warning of the dangers of the path Cayman was taking.
Its now a real pity to see that we have been proven right after all .
How to correct this situation is the job of us all who care about Cayman, and indeed, Jamaica as well.
Police stepping up patrol through road blocks seem to be a miniscule step to seriously address the dire crime situation in Cayman.
In just one month, six (6) armed robberies, one attempted robbery, a shooting and a stabbing. In addition, shots were fired into a home, a car jacking and a possible attempted murder.
To say that this highly intolerable situation is a ‘national crisis’ is putting it mildly. Many readers of the Compass have not only expressed their outrage and some, like myself, have made suggestions that the RCIPS could consider to deal with the situation. It either falls on deaf ears or only the RCIPS knows best. If it knew best, how did we get to this dangerous level of criminal activity in this small island? Isn’t very obvious that measures and methods used in the past and present are definitely not working.
The Cayman population is completely fed-up and has long past the stage of anger, frustration. How can residents feel safe day or night in their homes, at work or just going about their business?