Four arrested after weekend of violence

Four people were arrested following a weekend of violence that saw two restaurants robbed and two shootings.

A security guard was wounded in the crime spree but there were no reports of other injuries. By the end of the weekend, three people had been arrested for attempted murder and one for robbery.

In the latest gun crime reported, three masked robbers, armed with a firearm and machetes, held up the Chill Spot restaurant in Savannah on Saturday night.

The restaurant in Homestead Crescent was robbed shortly before 9:40pm as customers and staff were on the premises.

Police said it was reported that three men entered the restaurant, wearing face coverings and dressed in dark clothing. Two were armed with machetes, and a third with a gun.

“One of the suspects took a large sum of money from the cash register, then all three persons fled the premises on foot to the rear of the restaurant,” the RCIPS said in a statement Sunday.

Police said the vehicle used in the robbery – a silver Honda Fit – was tracked by Firearms Response Unit officers, with the help of the police helicopter, to Templeton Street in Windsor Park, George Town. There, one man was seen exiting the vehicle and fleeing into the bushes.

Police pursued the suspect on foot and apprehended him. The 34-year-old man, of West Bay, was arrested on suspicion of robbery.

He was taken to the Cayman Islands Detention Centre, where he remained in custody Sunday afternoon.

Security camera footage from inside the restaurant, which is circulating on social media, shows the three men entering the premises, and roughly pushing customers aside, before grabbing cash registers and monitors from the restaurant counter. There appeared to be four customers and two staff members inside the restaurant at the time.

No one was reported injured in the hold-up.

Violent weekend

The robbery was the third incident involving guns that police responded to Saturday.

A security guard at a construction site on Birch Tree Hill was shot in the foot in the first incident, which occurred around 1:30am. A man was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder in that case.

Just half an hour later, around 2am, police responded to a report of shots being fired at two men at the car park of Centennial Towers on West Bay Road. Bullets struck a building and a vehicle, but no one was injured. Police later arrested two suspects on suspicion of attempted murder.

There was also an armed robbery of another restaurant, on Mary Street in George Town, on Friday afternoon, involving a masked man wielding a machete.

Saturday night’s restaurant robbery is being investigated by the Criminal Investigations Department. Anyone with information can call the Bodden Town Police Station at 947-2220.

Anonymous tips can be provided via the RCIPS confidential tip line at 949-7777 or via the RCIPS.ky website. Tips can also be submitted anonymously via the Cayman Crime Stoppers website.