Editorial: After the ‘watershed’ 

Sunday’s mass shooting at a football stadium has been accurately described as a “watershed moment” in the annals of our islands’ criminal history.

Governor Jane Owen called it a “tragedy”; Police Commissioner Kurt Walton said it was “unprecedented”; and Premier Juliana O’Connor-Connolly emphasised “this level of violence is not normal”.

For seven people to be injured in a shooting in a public place, where families with young children were enjoying a football match, is, no doubt, a terrifying escalation of the gun crime that has afflicted this community for years.

At publication time, there had been no arrests.

Cayman prides itself on being one of the safest islands in the Caribbean.

But while comparisons to Jamaica, Honduras or The Bahamas far eclipse the scale of the issue here, these islands are no stranger to gun crime.

What was so unusual about Sunday’s act was that the bloodshed, which until now had been largely contained to the backstreets, bars and numbers shops associated with the criminal economy, spilled over into a public event.

The horror of young men casually taking each others’ lives has largely played out offstage for most of Cayman’s community.

That is what changed on Sunday.

Because the sad reality is that reckless gun crime, disregard for human lives – including innocent lives – is not actually that uncommon in Cayman.

The islands bear the scars of the murder of 4-year-old Jeremiah Barnes in 2010; the Patrick’s Island home invasion in 2017; the robbery-turned-murder of retired police officer Harry Elliott in 2022.

This is a watershed event, yes. But it is one we have been drifting towards for some time.

It is the inevitable culmination of firearm-related crime increasing year-on-year.

The inevitable calls for ‘zero tolerance’, tougher policing, stricter sentencing, bigger prisons and UK task forces have already begun. And make no mistake, the Compass supports all and any efforts to catch and prosecute the relatively small core of incorrigible criminals responsible for crimes like Sunday night’s.

But we urge our islands’ leaders to get as tough on the causes of crime, as on crime itself.

A new committee, task force or overseas expert is not required.

The answers are laid out in a series of reports commissioned, and funded, by the Cayman government over the last 20 years.

We commend and support the police as they seek to clean up the chaos. But they are dealing with the downstream consequences of a problem that needs fixing much earlier in the story.

The overwhelming conclusions from the multitude of reports are that a far greater focus is needed on crime prevention.

Almost 20 years ago, the Yolanda Forde report – a comprehensives landmark study into the causes of crime in Cayman – hammered home a truth that is as relevant today as it was two decades ago.

Investment in youth and in early intervention in the lives of children suffering neglect and abuse is the long-term answer to ending this production line of lost young men willing to take a gun into a public place to make a point.

“It is critical to note that when criminal risk factors are present in the life of a child, there must be appropriate early intervention if one wishes to save that individual from drifting down the path of anti-social behaviour, delinquency and ultimately into the revolving doors of the criminal justice system.”

The report recommended a pivot from what was seen as an over-reliance on the criminal justice response – catching and prosecuting criminals – at the expense of the much harder community work that needs to be done to ensure the generational cycle of criminality is broken.

Failure to put these circuit-breakers into meaningful effect now – with public momentum the impetus for action – gives us more than what the governor called “a glimpse through a window into what could happen if the threats we face from crime continue to increase”.

It guarantees the cycle won’t end and lives will continue to be lost.