Police in St. Vincent and the Grenadines intercepted last year two Trinidadians who had come to the country with a list of persons to be killed.
Acting Commissioner of Police, Colin John made the disclosure on Boom FM on Monday, during an interview during which he said that while there are some reprisal killings in SVG, most of the recent murders stemmed from other issues.
“We have some aspect of that, but it’s not exclusive or isolated to just gang members killing each other,” he said when asked about a comment by government senator, Julian Francis last year that many of the nation’s murders were the result of rival groups killing each other’s members.
“… last year, for instance, we had several crimes that were related to different groups who were fighting against each other,” the nation’s chief cop said.
“There are others that we have prevented,” he said, noting that the police do not get credit for crime prevention.
He then went on to speak about the interception of the would-be hit men and what police had done to protect the persons who were believed to have been the targets.
“I don’t know if you can recall last year some persons were taken into custody and then they went to the newspapers and said they don’t want to the police to protect them and things of that nature.
“It is because we received very good intelligence that persons were about to take them out.
“Last year, we deported two Trinidadians, they came here, and they had a list with the name of persons who they intended to take out.
“We intercepted them, we have written statements from them and electronic interviews from them saying what they intended to do.”
John said that another person with similar intentions was intercepted in SVG earlier this month.
“I think that one was a Barbadian. We intercepted him; we received credible information that he had come here to do a hit. His story was that he came here to buy drugs.
“We charged him for conspiracy to commit the act of drug trafficking. He went to court, he pleaded guilty for that offence. That is just two examples that I am presenting you with.”
John said that the police are always looking at ways of improving the nation’s homicide rate — the number of homicides in which a charge is laid, divided by the total number of crimes recorded.
John said the last three of four killings in SVG could have been avoided.
“Without going into the evidence per se, there is one in Diamonds that came out of some domestic issue, apparently.
“Then there was the killing in Rose Place, where some issue where — again, some other domestic issue.
“Then there was the issue with Pastor Enoch. It was very well ventilated in the public. You can have all the plans in the world. It is very difficult to make plans, from a police perspective, to deal with issues of that nature.”
He said that in the case of the apparently random stabbing of Brenda Layne in Kingstown, it is very difficult for police to make provisions to prevent these types of killings,
John further said:
“The police, we cannot be everywhere at every time. We depend on the public, we depend on persons with information to assist us with solving crime and making St. Vincent and the Grenadines a safer place for citizens and visitors. From time to time, we would have persons who come and give us information and we are very grateful to them. We are trying to enhance getting more informants getting forward. In a lot of the cases, this information is very helpful in solving crime and preventing crime.”
That is true they cannot prevent all killings some of them try their best
May the Good Lord continue to guide you and your organization in the fight against crime in our society.
This top still trying to fool the people of svg just for position.
Cop still telling her people to come forward with information and he seeing an informer must die tradition of these days.
Where on earth cop have such credible information about hitters and didn’t make AN arrest on all then charge for conspiracy.
Wait a minute…. did he say someone came from Barbados to SVG to do a “hit” and was charged with conspiracy to commit drug trafficking? What about conspiracy to commit murder?
Come on think my dear think….why would they charge for conspiracy to traffic drugs?
Are we supposed to believe that someone came into SVG with a paper from “who knows”, saying “These are the people you are supposed to kill”? Was there a title at the top of the page that reads: “kill list”?
Is it possible that after all the recent crime in SVG that someone wants to be seen as “doing a great job”?
So because the commissioner said list you assume it was a piece of paper? Wow. You lack the imagination and the critical thinking needed to engage you in rhetoric.
They can only change a person with what they can prove , and since the person admit to entering the country for the purpose of trafficking in drugs and the police can’t prove otherwise no matter what suspicions they may have thay can only change him for what he admitted to. The hitman resolve was stronger the the police interrogator’s .
Now give this man a promotion..the most sensible comment I’ve read on this article.
this is more reasons I talked about SVG and our Caribbean neighbors upgrading and improving our IT systems to share information on criminals records and profiles . Data needs to be shared and departments from local gov and Interpol collaborate together to greatly stop these inter-Caribbean transit of crime and hit-men. Also when criminals get deported from the US or foreign counties they should be updated in this data sharing system for a number of years , at least until they can prove they have become law abiding productive citizens .
Sudz… If I’m correct go back a few weeks in the paper and you will read about the guy the pick up at Lowmans.
So even the top COP is leaking information!..LMAO
The new CoP of TT just set up a DIRECT LINE for him to receive information. This will be helpful in SVG too.
Quite simply a Gunzi disease imagining someone is going to assassinate someone. Sounds like absolute rubbish to me.