Relatively quiet Carnival season in relation to crime – COP

The 12-day period (June 29 to July 10) marking Vincy Mas 2018 saw 59 cases of reported crimes.  

There were 20 cases of theft, 11 assaults causing actual bodily harm, seven reports of damage to property, seven robberies, five woundings, two persons charged for offensive weapons, two reports of stolen vehicles, one murder, one wounding with intent, one grievous bodily harm charge, one indecent assault incident and one person charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm.

Speaking about the reports, Commissioner of Police (COP) Colin John said that despite the numbers, the Carnival season was relatively quiet as the streets were populated with police officers.

“As a result of that, we were able to prevent a lot of incidents occurring and where incidents started we were able to move in and apprehend the persons,” the COP told SEARCHLIGHT yesterday.

Commissioner John said that the statistics show 20 thefts but some of these thefts were caused by carelessness on the part of the victims.

He said that many of these cases are where persons at bars left their phones on counters and they were stolen, while other incidents involved persons having their phones around their necks in pouches and having them snatched while masquerading. He noted also that a few of these thefts involved chains being snatched and a few persons were apprehended.

The COP noted also that the assaults occasioning actual bodily harm came out of small fights where persons received bruises and black eyes and other minor injuries.

He however noted that the seven robberies are cause for concern and they occurred after shows in places like Richmond Hill, McKies Hill and North River Road and saw persons accosted with cutlasses and firearms and the robbers demanded phones, money and other possessions.

The Commissioner said that the damage to property was in relation to vehicles being broken into while the two cars that were stolen were recovered.
He noted that prior to the Carnival season, the police warned about parking vehicles in dark areas and walking in alone in lonely areas.

The COP encouraged persons to utilize the various car parks as it is better to spend $15 or $20 on parking than to spend $400 to $500 replacing damaged windows and other things.

“One round of drinks or one drink is more than the car park fee,” said the COP.

It was noted that the one murder, the shooting of Akeem ‘Tallman’ Bess, was not carnival related but the person may have used the opportunity to perpetrate the crime.

“I express condolences to the relatives and friends of that person. Last year at this point, we had about 15 murders and I hope we do not have any more and we are able to significantly reduce the murder count,” the Commissioner said.

“We were able to prevent a lot of incidents from happening because the presence of the police acted as a deterrent and when persons started to agitate, the police stepped in. The public expressed their satisfaction with the presence of the police,” said Commissioner John.

He added, “prior to the ‘No Bottle Policy’, we had a significant increase in woundings but because of the ‘No Bottle Policy’, the incidents of wounding were five, and five over an 11-day period is a testimony that the ‘No Bottle Policy’ is indeed working and is indeed effective.”