The Royal Cayman Islands Police Service has stepped up its visibility, including implementing armed foot patrols, following a spike in firearm-related incidents, the most recent of which took place on Saturday.
Deputy Police Commissioner Kurt Walton, responding to queries from the Cayman Compass about the recent shootings, said, “any increase in firearm related incidents is of concern to us”.
Walton, in his emailed comment, said police, in response to the recent incidents, “have increased high-visibility patrols and implemented armed foot patrols in specific locations, and continue to conduct proactive intelligence-led operations”.
This month the police recorded three shootings and a firearm-involved robbery, the latest of which happened in West Bay on Saturday morning.
Several “active lines of inquiry” are being investigated in relation to these incidents, he said.
“Our investigations indicate that these recent incidents are not random or opportunistic crimes, but specifically targeted within certain groups,” he said.
A man was shot at his Adonis Drive home in West Bay in an aggravated burglary around 3:45am on Saturday.
Three men reportedly broke into his residence “brandishing a firearm”. The man man suffered a single gunshot wound and was taken by private vehicle to hospital for treatment.
His condition remains unknown at this time.
Walton said this incident, as well as two others – the shooting of a man outside a George Town bar on Seymour Drive on 7 June, and another days before that in the carpark of Trafalgar Place on West Bay Road – remain under investigation.
In another firearm-related incident last week a man was robbed at a barber shop on Eastern Avenue, near the School Road intersection. A shot was fired, but no one was injured in that incident.
Walton said the RCIPS remains committed to ensuring the safety of all members of the community, “by prosecuting firearm offenses and removing illegal firearms from our streets, as shown by our recent successful firearm recovery and arrest on Sound Way”.
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