You Can Trust the Police

To make a pig’s ear of many investigations!

The statistics are disturbing.  For example:

• Bermuda has experienced 66 murders since May 2009 (12 years) … 5+ murders* / annum in a population of <65,000.  This equates to about 7 homicides per 100,000 of population

Publicly available figures indicate 8.2/100,000 (source 174th) – this compares with 1.2 in England & Wales … Bermuda lags behind 173 countries!

• Since 2009, 44 persons have been appeared before the courts charged with 31 murders – 11 were acquitted/found not guilty/had verdict overturned at the Court of Appeal for six murders; a 25% of being wrongly convicted?
• 29 murders remain without prosecution – almost 50%!

It appears this is, in part, the fault of the public – the community appear not to be taking their ‘role in tackling serious crime‘ seriously.  The Bermuda police bizarrely compare ‘the lack of community support that equates to a reluctance of individuals to share information with law enforcement’ with the Covid pandemic.  Good luck with that analogy Antoine**!

Is it a fallacy ‘trust has to be earned’?  What of ‘if it is to be, it is up to me’?  You want to have high trust, it starts and ends with you. So stop apportioning the blame to those you are supposed to serve and set about putting your own house in order.  Time to stop playing at policing?

Sign in a USA narcotics department office … ‘you can trust two people … if the other one is dead!’

*intentional homicides which are defined as “an unlawful death deliberately inflicted on one person by another person

**Antoine Daniels is the Assistant Commissioner of Police! adaniels@bps.bm full article in the Royal Gazette – read more here