No help from 911!

Tue, Oct 12, 2010

Editor: The Police of St. Vincent and the Grenadines hold a great responsibility. However, they failed in their responsibility on Friday, October 1.

I live in the Villa/Indian Bay area and at 8:55 pm that night, I heard three gunshots ring out from somewhere in the vicinity. I am originally from the US and I come from a family of hunters. I was raised around guns and I know the sound of a gun when I hear one.{{more}} The gun I heard that night sounded like a small caliber pistol. The shots fired were one right after the other, “Bang, Bang, Bang.” Feeling the need to contact the police, I looked for a copy of SEARCHLIGHT because I knew it had the emergency numbers on the back. I began to call 911, but there was no answer. I called the other emergency number 999, but again there was no answer. I also tried calling 311, the crime hotline, to no avail. This went on for 25 minutes. I called all three numbers non-stop determined to see how long it took the police to answer the phone. However, they never answered!

After 25 minutes of constant calling, I finally gave up. How is it possible that at 9pm on a Friday night there is no police to answer an emergency call? I thank Jesus Christ that I did not have a life or death emergency. More and more often people have been firing gunshots in my area.

Every time it happens and no police show up, it tells the criminals that they can do whatever they want and get away with it. I do not feel safe anymore. I now know that if I have a real emergency, I cannot rely on the police for help. Vincentians everywhere should be outraged that this has happened.

Left Hanging