robbery, a machete attack on a guard dog, a once highly regarded lawyer convicted of stealing his client's money, vagrants causing a problem in the Cabinet Office grounds.

If there was ever a front page which indicated a need for better policing, yesterday's was it. Yet some people go on hampering the reorganisation of the Police Service by criticising every move which is taken. The situation is very simple. If the new Commissioner is not allowed to restructure the Police Service, and remove those people who are ineffective, then he cannot succeed at the job.

Not long ago Bermuda was remarkably free of guns and armed crime. Now a gunman has fired three shots at the staff of the Bermuda Industrial Union's Gas Station. Thankfully no-one was injured but that could well be just a happy circumstance.

Bullet the guard dog is back at work but even his vet is amazed. Clearly whomever attacked Bullet with a machete was up to no good or they would not have been around and about with a machete.

Armed violence was once virtually unheard of in Bermuda and whatever steps are needed must be taken to be sure that it becomes unheard of again. It is easy to say that such events result from the drug culture, and doubtless drugs play their part, but that is not the whole picture. We think there are signs from the roads, to domestic violence, to gun use that Bermuda has been in danger of becoming more and more "lawless''.

Not long ago vagrants were virtually unknown in Bermuda. There were a few and they were easily identified but today the numbers seem to grow and the people are becoming younger. Many simply move each day from the bushes and the sidewalks to the night shelters and back again.

In most cases their problem is alcohol yet they congregate in the area of liquor stores which quite happily go on supplying them when that is the last thing they need. It should be quite easy in a place as small as Bermuda to arrive at an agreement whereby the liquor merchants do not knowingly supply liquor to homeless addicts. The liquor store employees know better than anyone who the addicts are.

Policing is a complex system of balance. Small matters are important to that balance along with the large. While there are often huge pressures on the Police Service to solve major crimes, they must continue to Police routine infringements even if that enforcement leads to public complaint. As an example, we think that because Police stopped regular cycle checks, apparently under political pressure, cycle thefts began to grow and grow.

In general, a failure to attend to the routine sends the message that offences are now tolerated and, as a result, the magnitude of the offences grows. For far too long our Police Service was moribund, armed crimes grew but so did chaos on the roads.

Those people who suggest that we should combat crime but leave the staffing of the Police Service alone are living in fantasy land. They have no interest in improving the situation. Their aim is to score points by politicising the reorganisation of the Police Service. That is about the most dangerous game they could play.