by Yves Ephraim

HAS ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA QUIETLY ACCEPTED THIRD COUNTRY NATIONALS?

I have been listening with great interest to the flurry of reactions to the sudden, meteoric rise in violent crime.

This week alone, there has been at least one crime per day that involved the use of a firearm. This, in my opinion, has set a precedent.

Is this an anomaly or is this the evidence of the new normal?

Numerous videos are circulating showing these criminals at work.

It is sheer terror!

As I watch the videos circulating throughout social media, it became apparent to me that in spite of the high quality of video images, our police appear not to be any closer to apprehending the perpetrators.

Deploying video cameras throughout the state was offered as a way to bring crime under control, yet with the preponderance of private surveillance camera footage, our law enforcement has made no break-throughs.

The data regarding unsolved crimes in Antigua and Barbuda, clearly shows that our police force or service has been doing an abysmal job.

It is beyond comprehension that with such clear footage, that these perpetrators are not already in custody.

More and more of these crimes are being conducted in broad daylight and in total defiance of the police force. Even with their faces shrouded, the criminals have other distinguishing features that someone in the public must recognize.

I find it hard to believe that these individuals can simply dissolve into the community without notice.

The time has come for the Attorney General and the Police to be forced to account for their stewardship.

Somebody has fallen asleep at the wheel!

These fits of stop-and-search cannot adequately arrest these issues.

If I were the commissioner of police, I would take a map of Antigua and Barbuda and using the resources I already have, make sure that I have continuous patrols throughout the hotspots and more so during the hours that the data shows tend to have high incidences of crime.

I would create patrol circuits that overlap to ensure a police officer is never more than 10 minutes away to responds to a call.

In all of the declarations I hear from the government regarding addressing this crime wave, nothing has been said about training for the police. There is always talk about buying this and buying that to help the situation, but nothing ever said about improving the human capital.

We just heard of a gun-related case which was dismissed for insufficient evidence. What is the point of increasing penalties and lengthening sentences when you are: 1) poor at finding criminals, and 2) do not know how to present court-ready evidence.

Giving the police modern crime-fighting tools without training is like giving a Corvette to a toddler.

You need only look at the “banged up” state of the police vehicles on the street to understand my point.

I cannot help but draw the conclusion that the criminals are fully aware of the police’s poor track record of solving even petty crimes.

Perhaps they feel that Antigua and Barbuda is the wild, wild west.

I had a personal experience back in 2006 where my company’s van was stolen. I reported the matter to the police and checked in regularly to get a sense on the progress of the investigation. After six months had transpired, I totally gave up on the idea of finding the van.

A few months later, I got a telephone call from a friend who called to ask why was my company’s vehicle up for auction?

What!?

I asked him where he got that information and he immediately sent me a picture of the Gazette page showing the VIN number with my company’s name next to it.

You can imagine how dumbfounded I was after learning this.

I immediately reached out to my contact at the Police station to let them know that they had recovered my van and it was at their American Road headquarters.

Apparently, my van was discovered among a number of vehicles that were stripped completely for parts somewhere in the bushes.

After having seen my stripped-down van, I told the police that I had no interest and that they should proceed to auction it since they now wanted me to take it away. It would have cost me more to move it than the total value of the chassis.

Can you imagine that CID was investigating the theft of my vehicle for months yet not know that another police team had found my missing van?

It took the Gazette and a friend to solve this.

Mind you, I am not aware that anyone was ever caught for this crime.

I want to shift gears a bit.

There is something about these recent gun-related crimes that come across as intentional, as if there is an organized gang that is intent on marking territory, just like a male dog does on your car tires.

The way that the crime wave has been progressing, feels as if hardened criminals have heard that Antigua and Barbuda is a honeypot and are landing here every week.

I shudder to think that Antigua and Barbuda has been receiving “Third Country Nationals (TCN), without the public’s knowledge.

For all I know, this disturbing thought, in the words of the Temptations, could simply be “just my imagination running away with me”.

However, the timing of the sudden acceleration of violent gun-crime is suspect, if not co-incidental.

I wish I could have that level of confidence to believe that our government would not pull a fast one on the population, but I do not.

The whole matter with our acceptance of TCNs has been a very opaque process, leaving the population in total darkness.

It is noteworthy, that since the parliament voted on the way forward on the TCN issue that the public has not been apprised of the progress of negotiations while we continue to observe other Caribbean governments quietly accepting TCNs, one by one.

It makes me wonder whether Antigua and Barbuda may have already been accepting TCNs particularly those of the “despicable” sort.

Can we rule this out as a reason for the escalation of gun crimes?

We have been fooled before.

It was not long ago that it was published that Antigua Airways’ aim was to bring high net-worth individuals to look at investment opportunities but all we got was a plane-load of Cameroon refugees headed to the USA.

This article was originally published by Antigua News Room. Read the original article here: OPINION: Has Antigua and Barbuda Quietly Accepted Third Country Nationals?.