US Consul General Grace Shelton told her bosses in Washington she had a “guarded confidence” that police in Bermuda were on the right track in tackling crime.Her comment was written in a “sensitive” cable which she sent to the US Government on January 22, 2010 and which has been published by Wikileaks along with a raft of others about Bermuda.The documents cover topics including women’s issues, the H1N1 flu virus, migrant worker abuse, plastic pollution in the sea, narcotics, tax issues and local politics.Ms Shelton’s January 22 cable was prompted by the release of Bermuda Police Service’s 2010 policing plan by Commissioner Michael DeSilva.“It is an ambitious strategy aimed at making Bermuda a safer place to live, work and visit,” she wrote.“The plan is a welcome approach; it is proactive, aggressive, comprehensive and targeted and will bring the BPS into the 21st century.“It also has the unqualified, unified support of the Governor and Home Affairs Minister a necessary change from past practice where the Bermuda Government and Government House seemed to work at cross purposes.”Ms Shelton said the plan laid the “groundwork for tackling guns and gangs now” and recognised the need for outside assistance.“The BPS is seeking more help in crisis management, crime scene examination, forensic pathology and close protection,” she wrote, adding that the Consulate’s security officer was working to identify “immediate assistance with regards to VIP protection training”.The cable ended with Ms Shelton remarking she had “guarded confidence that the BPS is on the right track and that the support from the community and Government it is now enjoying will pave the way for reduced crime in the future”.Another cable she sent that day described the success of FBI gang training given to 60 police and prosecutors here.Ms Shelton described Bermuda as “facing a crisis in public safety brought about by the surge in gangs and gun-related violence”.In an earlier email, sent on November 13, 2009, she discussed Bermuda’s fight against drugs. She wrote that Assistant Police Commissioner Paul Wright had shared statistics on drug seizures with the Consulate.She said he told Consulate staff on October 13, 2009 that the BPS had a real problem with “data integrity”, partly because current figures did not reflect the interception of drugs heading to Bermuda.“He complained that the daily newspaper does a better job reporting crime statistics than the BPS itself.”Mr DeSilva said last night: “The Bermuda Police Service went on record in January 2010 that we needed to do a better job of reporting accurate and timely crime statistics.“We have accomplished that, and then some. As for the rest of the cable, the Bermuda Police Service is not the author: it is not for us to speak to its content.”This newspaper asked US Consulate spokeswoman Astrid Black if Ms Shelton wanted to comment but she didn’t get back to us by press time.Useful websites: www.wikileaks.ch, www.bps.bm, http://hamilton.usconsulate.gov