Thanking the “brave few” who surrendered their illegal weapons and bullets, the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service revealed that four firearms and more than 2,800 rounds of ammunition were surrendered in the latest gun amnesty.
Police acknowledged that the tally was less than they had hoped for.
As well as the firearms and bullets, a ballistic vest, two spearguns with additional spears, a flare gun and a paintball gun were surrendered to police.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, detailing the tally of items, police said they would not be releasing photographs of what was surrendered to the RCIPS to protect the anonymity of the people who turned in the guns, ammunition and restricted weapons.
The amnesty, which lasted almost six weeks, came to an end on 11 Aug. It was originally expected to last one month, from 1 July, but due to disruptions caused by Hurricane Beryl, it was extended by an additional 11 days.
“The RCIPS partnered with members of the community to ensure that the opportunity for the gun amnesty was widely publicised and known by all,” Chief Superintendent Brad Ebanks said in the statement.
He added, “While the hand-ins were considerably less than we hoped for, considering that we know that there is a significant number of illegal guns in our communities, it is important that we acknowledge and thank the brave few who did come forward; you’ve helped to make the Cayman Islands safer.”
Police have previously said they believe there are at least 90 illegal firearms in Cayman.
Some of those weapons are circulated among criminals and have been used in multiple violent offences.
Concerns over gun crime have been rising in Cayman in recent years, with an increase in armed robberies and shootings. Those concerns were escalated in February this year when a gunman opened fire during a football match at the Ed Bush Stadium in West Bay, injuring seven people. No one has been charged in relation to the shooting.
Since then, Cayman politicians have amended the islands’ Firearms Act, introducing tougher penalties, including increasing the mandatory minimum sentence for possessing an illegal firearm from 10 year to 15 upon conviction, and from seven years to 10 years with a guilty plea.
According to the police crime statistics for 2023, firearms were used in eight offences involving “serious violence”, including two of the four murders committed last year and all of the six attempted murders reported.
Ebanks said that now the gun amnesty is over, police “will continue our policing efforts to locate illegal guns and prosecute those who insist on being in possession of illegal guns”.
Several volunteers and pastors helped the RCIPS during the amnesty, letting people who wanted to surrender items know how they could do so. The police, in their statement, thanked those individuals, saying their desire to help with the campaign was “borne out of their personal interest in making their communities and the people who live in them safer”.
Among those individuals were the cast of Cayman-based reality TV show ‘Secrets in Paradise’, police said.
People who wanted to surrender guns were given the option of handing them over to a ‘trusted third party’ – one of the volunteers or pastors; putting them in a dropbox at a police station; via Cayman Crime Stoppers; or by anonymously calling police to pick them up.
The last gun amnesty was held in 2018, when 18 firearms, including 11 long guns and seven handguns, and 900 rounds of ammunition were surrendered.
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