Cayman has, so far, logged 42 firearm-enabled crimes in 2021 compared to 30 in 2020, along with a 24% increase in thefts, according to RCIPS statistics as of 8 Nov.
However, Deputy Police Commissioner Kurt Walton said officers are making progress as arrests continue and guns are being taken off the streets.
“Most of those [firearm-enabled crimes] started certainly since April 10th to October 11th. So you’ve got six months where we saw a significant increase in firearm-enabled crimes. As far as our activity and what we’re doing… we’ve already recovered in proactive operations… four firearms this year,” Walton said during the Wednesday, 17 Nov. episode of the Cayman Compass Facebook talk show ‘The Resh Hour’.
This year, Cayman also experienced a spike in shootings, with multiple victims.
Back in July six people, one of whom died, were shot in one incident. Suspects in that shooting have since been arrested and charged.
“We’re continuing to be proactive in terms of apprehending individuals who are in possession of unlicensed firearms. We have a dedicated major incident room team that has just been non-stop, on-the-go looking at certainly all of the investigative stuff,” he said.
“We’ve charged an individual for the shooting in Martin Drive on July 1st. And then we charged an individual for murder and five counts of attempted murder for the July 9th incident outside of the Vic’s [Bar] location and then we made another two arrests,” he explained.
Police, he said, are focussed on stamping out gun crime in Cayman.
“We’re continuing to arrest individuals for these offences. We’re continuing to be proactive in terms of ‘let’s go and go after’ individuals who are in possession of firearms, certainly where we have sufficient intelligence that a person may have access [to], or is in possession of, a firearm,” he said.
RCIPS Media Relations Officer Jodi-Ann Powery, who also appeared on the show, added that while arrests have been made based on those investigations, the public’s support is still needed.
“Even though a lot of the investigations have been going on since the early part of the year, they are still active investigations. The detectives that are working on these, they still need information from the public. On our mobile app, we have a ‘submit a tip’ function where you can submit tips either anonymously, or confidentially, and in doing so you would be able to assist us with these investigations and be a part of the ‘making Cayman safer’ initiative that we have going on,” Powery said.
Thefts a concern
As of 8 Nov., there had been 651 reported thefts, a lot of which, Walton said, are coming from people breaking into motor vehicles.
Last year, there were 526 thefts recorded over the same time period.
“That [651] figure at the moment represents 27% of our overall crime stats… So it’s quite big,” Walton said.
As the holiday shopping season approaches, Walton is reminding residents to secure their belongings and avoid leaving valuables in vehicles as thefts have been on the rise.
He said thefts, like other acquisitive crimes, are opportunistic in nature.
Referencing the spike in thefts, Walton said there were a lot of apartment complexes and condos where cars were “obviously left exposed at night” with individuals looking for ” the first opportunity where the car’s unlocked to go in and rummage and look for [a] small amount of cash, petty cash, or whatever valuable they can find inside of those cars.”
Powery reminded business owners that they, too, should take steps to secure their property and customers ahead of the busy holiday season.
One arrest breaks spate of thefts
Walton pointed to a string of thefts along the South Church Street, South Sound and Walkers Road area over the last month which triggered a pro-active police operation and the arrest of one person who was charged with three of those offences.
“As a consequence of charging that one individual, we saw an immediate drop in those type of thefts. So you could have one individual out there pretty much just involved in a multiplicity of that type of offence. Unfortunately, at times we may not necessarily have the evidence to charge him for all of those, but sufficient enough to charge him for a number of those, and make an application to the court to have him remanded,” Walton said.
He also noted that as of 8 Nov., there had been a 26% drop in burglaries compared to the same period in 2020, from 144 down to 106.
Robberies were also down, with 15 recorded for the same period, compared to 20 last year.
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