Opposition asks government to hold talks with gang leaders on crime

NASSAU (CMC)

The Bahamas has recorded seventh murder since the start of the new year and the Opposition is calling on the Phillip Davis government to call a meeting with gang leaders to avoid further bloodshed.

Police said that the latest victim, whose identity has not been made public, was shot and killed on Saturday afternoon and that his death follows that of another man who was killed last Friday night, after he was shot multiple times by occupants inside of a vehicle.

The police said that the dead man is well known to them and that he was not being electronically monitored and had recently been detained for a serious offence.

Meantime, Opposition Leader Michael Pintard has called on the government to meet with gang leaders, saying many parliamentarians know the “street leaders” and those who wield “influence over a number of the persons who are wreaking havoc.

“Call a conclave with the senior fellas who run the streets, who lead these gangs who members of parliament know to find out. What is the conflict? Are there irreconcilable differences? How do we get peace on the streets? Have that conversation. For those who are unwilling to heed, let the full weight of the system deal with them, but don’t carry on as though we don’t know who is who, because we do.”

Pintard, the leader of the main Opposition Free National Movement, said in a local broadcast that while the Prime Minister Davis has made efforts abroad to curb gun trafficking to this country, but hasn’t done enough locally.

Pintard said businesspeople, church leaders, and Junkanoo leaders are among those who could be involved in behind-the-scene meetings with leaders of the “informal” groups.

“We need to put them in the room with some of the influential men and women who control that informal sector, control those persons who engage in any form of criminality that can result in acts of violence and to get to the bottom of what some of those conflicts are,” he said, insisting that those in power always know who influential people are in those “informal” communities.

“In the majority of constituencies, they know who is the most influential in this particular subdivision. Whether you’re in the south, running from South Beach to all the way to Golden Isles, whether you are in central, whether you are in the east, they know who is the most influential, and some of them are known by name. This is why you heard policymakers just recently saying that the person who died was like a brother or I know them well. I know the whole family. Of course they do,” the Opposition leader said.

The Bahamas registered more than 110 murders last year.