Dear Sir,

After being robbed at gunpoint in St George last week, I wanted to share a few thoughts.

The first point I would make is that we in St George have seen and felt the recent “crime wave” building ever since our police station was closed. We have also frequently and consistently voiced these concerns through every available channel: through our Corporation of St George to both the Government and directly to the police and the Governor; at town hall meetings; through groups and individuals involved with the former Department of Tourism and now the Bermuda Tourism Authority; through groups and associations to the local MPs; to party caucus members and directly to the Cabinets of the day; and, finally, via direct appeals to the premiers of the day.

All this to say that no one who was or is part of the governing or security apparatus can claim not to have been warned that this kind of problem was coming.

Two weeks ago, there was a public meeting and the community reaction was very strongly focused on restoring a police station to the town, again.

My impression is that, for the first time in a while, this message actually got some traction. It is clear that even if they wanted to, the police service could not reopen the St George police station tomorrow. What did happen, though, was that Senator Jeff Baron, the Minister of National Security, instructed the police service to dramatically increase their presence in the town.

A week ago Wednesday at about midday, three armed thieves entered our shop and smashed and grabbed a large quantity of jewellery while threatening and intimidating myself and my staff. They then fled “up the hill”.

The silver lining was that police officers were in the town at the time, as a result of the “increased presence” initiative, and the response was immediate. The immediacy of the response was the most critical factor in the outcome, which led to a suspect being detained within hours. Had those officers not been in the town, the outcome might have been very different.

The rapid response may not be of direct help to us, but catching criminals, especially quickly, is the most effective deterrent to future events such as this.

Clearly, the calculus for the next potential theft will be very different than it was for this one.

Thank you, Mr Baron and thank you, Kenneth Bascome.

The takeaway here is very clear: having a robust police presence in the town works.

What we need now is a commitment to a permanent increased presence; even if this means putting temporary offices in the old prison yard until the full-time reopening of our police station.

JAN CARD

Vera P. Card Ltd, St George