Calls to Crime Stoppers Bermuda rose during The Royal Gazette’s series highlighting the 12 unsolved gun murders since May 2009, according to the charity’s chairman.John Drew said the in-depth articles and videos on the fatal shootings “put Crime Stoppers in people’s minds” and reminded them they could provide tips on crime entirely anonymously.The launch of our Speak Up Save Lives series on August 29 coincided with a new “Money for Guns” campaign by Crime Stoppers encouraging people to provide tips on firearms for substantial rewards.Mr Drew said the two-pronged approach was effective and led to “good quality” tips on weapons, gangs, drug crime, robberies, potential shootings and cold case murder investigations.“These tips are directly related to current community issues and we are told by the Bermuda Police Service that such has been very beneficial.”The charity boss said the Crime Stoppers campaign and the newspaper series were “timely and relevant” and fit in well with current community focus and policing priorities.He added that street banners put up by CableVision around the Island advertising the Crime Stoppers hotline and website also helped drive the message home.Detective Chief Inspector Nicholas Pedro, who is in charge of special investigations at Bermuda Police Service’s Serious Crime Division, said the series didn’t lead to a rash of calls directly to police, as hoped.But he said it did raise awareness both of the lives lost through gun crime in the last two-and-a-half years and the work detectives are doing to solve the murders.“From my perspective, the series was not incredibly helpful in terms of getting witnesses to come forward,” he said. “But, certainly, I think it raised awareness about what the police are doing and put a human face on the victims, rather than them being statistics.“People in the community got to see these were real people that died, people that had mothers, fathers, children, brothers, sisters, aunts.“They are real live people and there are people that cared about them; albeit some of them may be gangsters, but they are still people who left behind families and loved ones who will never get over their loss.”Det Ch Insp Pedro added: “Quite often, maybe, members of the public don’t quite appreciate what goes into a murder investigation.“Hopefully this demonstrated that the police do not forget victims of crime and that whilst things may still be going on or even when it’s quiet we are still progressing these cases and working on them.“That perhaps provides a level of comfort to members of the public who perhaps don’t understand what we do on a daily basis.”Our series focused on the murders of Kenwandee Robinson, Garry Cann, Perry Puckerin, James Lawes, Kimwandae Walker, George Lynch, Freddy Maybury, Colford Ferguson, Jahmiko LeShore, Randy Robinson, David Clarke and Jason Smith.If you have any information that could help solve any of these murders, please contact the Serious Crime Unit on 247-1340 or the confidential Crime Stoppers hotline on 800-8477.lYou can also visit www.crimestoppers.bm or the charity’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/#!/BDACrimeStop.