Cayman Islands lawmakers are expected to resume closed-door crime talks with Governor Duncan Taylor and Police Commissioner David Baines after the two were summoned late Friday to a meeting with Legislative Assembly members.
According to those in attendance, the two men wished to consider advice from legislators over the weekend and resume discussions today.
Among the topics being reviewed were police funding and staffing, the need for greater presence of armed officers, and what ability Cayman Islands residents currently had to defend themselves from criminals.
Earlier on Friday, lawmakers unanimously supported a motion by Premier McKeeva Bush calling for Governor Duncan Taylor and Royal Cayman Islands Police Service Commissioner David Baines to deploy a ‘serious organised crime unit’ and strengthen investigation of serious crimes.
Describing unrepentant criminal perpetrators as “young fops”, Mr. Bush said it is imperative to get the serious crime unit in operation immediately.
“This group will kick them where it hurts. They will let them know that they can’t move about this country with impunity,” Premier Bush said.
Leader of the Opposition Alden McLaughlin said he was pleased with Mr. Bush’s motion, which he said mirrored a motion of his own that he had prepared to bring as well.
“We have a national crisis of immense proportions,” he said.
Mr. McLaughlin said laws preventing peaceful individuals from possessing firearms or instruments for personal protection were “complete and utter nonsense”.
North Side MLA Ezzard Miller gave his full and unconditional support for the motion, adding that he wished the meeting with Mr. Taylor and Mr. Baines had been open so that the public could hold officials accountable for the proceedings. Mr. Miller said it was time for the police to be a true ‘force’ rather than a ‘service’, urging for all police officers to be armed with non-lethal Tasers.
Several members called for a switch to more aggressive US-style policing instead of following the UK’s tradition of unarmed police.
“On this day, the members of this Legislative Assembly decided enough is enough, and we want action, not service,” Mr. Miller said.
Bodden Town MLA Anthony Eden said the perpetrators they are dealing with “are not Sunday schoolchildren”.
“We gotta stop pussyfooting. These are criminals. We got to deal with them once and for all,” he said.
Mr. Eden expressed his support for capital punishment and American-style “three strikes” laws that prescribe life sentences for third convictions of committing serious crimes. He also said that any criminal targeting his home would risk meeting a lethal response from his personal firearm.
“If I am invaded, Betsy [referring to his firearm] don’t mind losing a few children. As a lawmaker I shouldn’t say that. We need to send a message,” Mr. Eden said.
George Town MLA Ellio Solomon suggested that Mr. Bush and Mr. McLaughlin come together to determine whether changes to the Constitution are needed to help deal with crime.
Bodden Town MLA Mark Scotland said, “I am proud to be a member of the Government today.”
Lack of confidence
Mr. Scotland said people have very little confidence in police and not a great deal of confidence in the judiciary either.
Opposition Leader McLaughlin agreed, stating the current justice system at all stages, prevention, apprehension, investigation and prosecution, was broken.
“It is failing. If we need to call inquiries, then we need to call inquiries,” he said.
Commissioner Baines himself recently called into question the decision of a visiting judge in a local murder trial. At the end of the trial, Justice Howard Cooke – in a judge-alone proceeding – found defendant Devon Anglin not guilty of killing 4-year-old Jeremiah Barnes outside a West Bay gas station in February 2010.
Speaking on the courthouse steps after the verdict, Mr. Baines said to local media representatives: “it was a sad day for the Barnes family and a desperate day for justice in the Cayman Islands”.
Legendary local attorney Ramon Alberga, QC, took exception to those reported remarks by the police commissioner and asked Mr. Baines to apologise to Justice Cooke. Mr. Alberga’s request came in a letter to the editor sent to the Caymanian Compass, the full text of which will be published this week in the newspaper.
“Whilst we all sympathise with the parents of Jeremiah Barnes, an acquittal in the light of the judge’s careful decision was not a desperate day for justice in Cayman and for it to be so described by the commissioner of police was entirely inappropriate and regrettable,” Mr. Alberga wrote.
Commissioner Baines has not responded to repeated requests for comment about the issue from the Caymanian Compass.
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No doubt Mr Eden’s Betsy is licensed, kept correctly etc.and he would only use her in clear self-defence. I hope he has kept in regular practice and always observed all necessary precautions.
I am however, very wary of the extensive private possession of guns, even by apparently respectable and responsible persons.
Hence, I am reminded of a gun affair involving shooting in the street, not at a criminal, rather at a family member, by another (now ex) MLA around 1990.
Betsy’s for all!
Dear Old Hand,
I remember the incident but it speaks volumes for the kind of men we keep electing. He was shooting at a female yes the weaker vessel!
And this same ex-MLA called up a bank manager and told him to ‘FIRE a staff member who was campaigning for his opponents. That’s how low these people will go who expect us to respect them and have faith in them. They must work hard for us to respect them and have faith in them. Respect is to be EARNED. MLA’ must create jobs, not try to get people fired.
Not to stray away from the subject, but everyone need to protect themselves.
I agree that this should not be a call to arms by private citizens. If our priority is death avoidance by firearms, we cannot disregard the statistics that show domestic violence with the use of a gun is a major problem in countries who have liberal gun ownership. Cayman must not overreact and call in the national guard when a strategic strike will do.. George Town and West-Bay are the major base of operation for the criminals, strategic strikes there, with good roadblocks and screens at Spots to keep them from infiltrating the eastern districts.
Get those guns; lets not put more out there.. There is little time for a cooling off period when passion and jealousy demand retribution and Betsy is close at hand..
Old Hand
A gun or any weapon for that matter, is only as good as the person using it; weapons provide an added advantage and edge in a confrontation, they are no guarantee of success.
The problem with Cayman and Britain, being identical in offensive weapons laws, is the disproportionate allowance given to the average, law-abiding citizen in what weapons he/she can possess legally in relation the threat faced from armed criminals.
That is the only real problem, along with British law’s unrealistic limits on what is defined as ‘reasonable force’ in defense of life and property.
In the USA, this problem does not exist, the fact being that US laws accept and allow for the use of firearms by the entire citizenry; there is no such thing as ‘criminal possession’ of a firearm in the USA; there is use of a firearm in the ‘committing of a crime’, which is an aggravated situation that carries with it extra, heavy sentencing upon conviction.
British and Caymanian laws do not allow for the possession of ‘offensive weapons’ even within one’s home for self defense but I guarantee you, every single household in the world possesses any type of implements that can be used as ‘offensive weapons’ should that household be threatened.
The laws in Britain are being reviewed regarding self-defense and reasonable force and so needs to be reviewed in Cayman now, even more so.
For most sensible people, the old adage’ ‘rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6 still remains the rule of thumb.
For those people, you threaten their lives and safety at the very risk of your own because the law is of secondary concern at the moment they are forced into defending their lives and property from dangerous predators.
Maybe this crime wave in Cayman will abate when these criminals encounter more of such people and are the ones ending up in the hospital or at the morgue.
Allocating 35 million dollars to include payment for an independent review of the the RCIP police depart can result in somewhat of a waste if we are not careful. Has the government been reading the various posts, and comments from the public, as the public has been reviewing the RCIP’s way of police all along! Why would you pay a consultant millions of dollars to be told what we have been telling you all for the past two years?
I’d like to recommend that TRAINING and WORKING ALONGSIDE U.S. POLICE AND FORMER FBI and Ex-MILITARY personnel is the WAY TO GO. There is NO NEED for anymore debate, we have been debating this matter for the past two years and its time to ACT. Acting does not mean flooding the country with UK police who are not familiar with this new culture of hard core criminal activity. It is already tested and proven that the UK method of policing is absolutely ineffective in this region and is a high risk for more disaster. No disrespect it is just the facts. If we are to bring in U.S Police to assist in a resolution to the crime surge in Cayman, then we assume that we will let the EXPERTS LEAD THE WAY and not expect them to conform to our already ineffective way of policing that is not working at all. It’s time to watch more CSI and engage. The crime has outgrown the RCIP effectiveness and therefore new strategies adapted from overseas law enforcement pros need to be implemented ASAP as they are very familiar with such cases, well trained in handling same, and whereas our RCIP are NOT.
We expect that there will not be a long drawn out series of notices to the public of indoor or behind closed door consultations with no action and blowing smoke… This is a time for action, to put a stop to crime and stop these dangerous criminals in their tracks.
The main issue needed to be addressed is the handling of intelligence submitted in the cases of missing persons and other serious crimes like murder and robberies, as we are losing almost every case in our courts. Something is seriously going wrong from the time an individual is arrested, prosecuted and sentenced. The way in which investigations are being conducted, and how the evidence is protected needs some serious review and examination, as in too many instances the crime scene is left free for the perpetrators themselves to trample and remove evidence of the crime they committed. Therefore the evidence is compromised and inadmissible in a court of law. so the perpetrator all to often especially of recent, walks FREE.
Could it be that we need more quality in our way of policing than quantity? Increasing numbers may not be necessary? We already have over 300 RCIP, I submit that training experience and expertise to fight this new breed of criminals in this region is the real issue.
These recent crimes of kidnappings, murders and disappearances without a trace needs to be cited as serious and RCIP should immediately flag AMW in cases where those fugitives could have very well made it to the Cayman Islands continuing their sick criminal activity.
i would add and hope that all lawmakers have enough sense and intelligence to take this seriously.
Its no good allocating 35 million dollars to fight crime, if you have no idea who you are looking for. this is Absolute Nonsense!
FINGERPRINTING MUST BE IMPLEMENTED laying the groundwork for good police work and it CANNOT be accomplished otherwise you are making a mockery of the safety of the people of the Cayman Islands.
How can the police hold an individual for a crime if no fingerprints are on file to match them up with?
There needs to be a NATIONAL GOVERNMENT ID POLICY
in place FIRST in order to properly identify everyone or this attempt will fail and more excuses will follow and the RCIP will continue chasing shadows instead of people. The Police Cars need to be equipped with computers on the scene to run checks on individuals at the crime scene, and the Government ID that everyone should be mandated to possess will assist police in identifying the perpetrators being sought.
If you are not going to do this review and process right then don’t do it at all for it makes no sense. Put the money back into the treasury and do not waste our time.
It’s time to do things differently.
Tiger
Commissioner Baines needs to enshrine this letter of yours, print it off on engraved paper, frame it and put it on his desk…as a ‘how to change and run the RCIPS properly’ guideline…and pay you consultants fees on top of that…for a condensed tutorial on how to police Cayman, right now.
As an added appendix to my last post, let me not pull any punches and call a spade a spade but first, an example.
I’m acquainted by sight, not association, with a certain young man from Jamaica who used to manage one of Cayman’s amateur football clubs basically formed from and for Jamaican immigrant workers in Cayman.
A nice enough chap, who was always in the papers on football-related matters…
And then, one afternoon, coming from the Truman Bodden Sports Complex from playing football myself, low and behold, was our erstwhile football club manager(and probably some clerk or vocational worker on his day job), in his spanking, brand new, shiny RCIPS constable’s uniform, with bright red stripe, shooting a radar gun at passing cars, carrying out RCIPS traffic control duties!
I shook my head and made sure I drove past him very slowly and carefully because, footballers and football people carry very long and vindictive memories…
Do you get my point ?; you are an extremely intelligent person so I know that you do, even though others might not.
I’m sorry to say but that is what the bulk of the RCIPS officers now look like in Cayman; I’ve seen and worked with many of them when I last lived there and managed the security team of one of the major restaurants in George Town and was certainly not impressed, up close and personal.
If the CI Government and Commissioner Baines wishes to change things effectively, they will certainly have to follow your advice because…
Going back to my last post, they have no clue of who they have from Jamaica living amongst them and holding positions of responsibility and authority.
I guarantee you, some of these members of the current police force in Cayman could never have come near a recruitment class for the Jamaica Constabulary Force, not to mention the Jamaica Defense Force.
A lot will have to change for Cayman to beat this current crime problem and lets leave it at that for now.
Thank you so much Firey,
Lets not rule out your undisputed,uncontested, elevated above average, and I dare say one the highest intelligent minds that is at work frequently in these forums. We can not do without brilliant minds like yours. I still can’t get it why brilliant minds can’t seem to get the appreciation they deserve.
I appreciate you. Keep writing we need you, you should be sitting on one of our Government security councils.
God Bless You.
Firey and Tiger,
I agree with you both.
May I add that instead of the Cayman Islands Government paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to phony consultants from overseas that they divert those funds to pay our own Caymanians with brilliant minds like yours instead. Our people within the scope of high intelligence seems to have the answers and it all make a lot of sense.
But then again, nobody’s hands will get greased if they pay our own local brilliant minds for a consultation. My gosh what was I thinking.That’s the downside. The upside to this suggestion is that our own people will make suggestions and recommendations that are always for the good of the country. They should be on the advisory council. Maybe government wouldn’t be making so many mistakes.
Firey and Tiger, you are two brilliant and intelligent Caymanians. I am proud of you.
What is Mr. Alberga’s point. To my knowledge he did not represent the Plaintiff nor the accused charged with this crime. Is Mr. Alberga saying that judge alone cases are just as reliable as that of a jury OH No. If so he’s wrong. WRONG
This Judge Alone trial business needs to end and END NOW! The judges are scared of these criminals they don’t want them to come after them at least not after getting a real closeup look of them.
are you kidding me.
THE LA, THE GOVERNOR, PREMIER AND COMM. OF POLICE ANTHONY SMELLIE ALL OF YOU. Listen carefully:-
THESE CRIMINALS CANNOT CONTINUE TO ENJOY A JUDGE ALONE TRIAL while families mourning their loved ones mourn their loss with no closure.This is exactly what these criminals want.
THESE CASES NEED to be tried in front of A JURY that allows checks and balances in judgement for the plaintiff and sentencing of the accused proven to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
THIS HAS TO CHANGE NOW. Stop all Cases and CORRECT THIS SERIOUS PROBLEM. Do It NOW!