By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

POLICE Commissioner Ellison Greenslade yesterday revealed that most of the murders being committed in the country are retaliation killings stemming from illegal drug dealing.

Mr Greenslade admitted that murders committed by repeat offenders, granted bail shortly after being charged in court, have continued to challenge police. He said that the Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) has done extremely well in the fight against crime.

This comes just weeks before the RBPF’s planned release of the crime statistics for 2014. Critics of the Christie administration’s crime-fighting strategies anticipate that this year’s murder toll – at 115 up to last night – will surpass 2013’s count of 119.

The commissioner spoke to reporters following a fraud seminar at the Hilton hotel.

“Trust me when I tell you that we have done extremely well,” he said. “Except we have this really tough category and (it is a) difficult category where people are losing their lives in the Bahamas. I fear that.

“We have to stop that haemorrhage. We have to find a way to stop it. We are arresting people frequently and we are seeing the same people over and repeatedly.

“We have this group of young Bahamian men predominantly who are prepared to settle their differences among themselves. Most times it is simple, just harsh words among young people and egos in many instances.

“(But) I am going to go back to what some of us don’t want to hear and it is drugs. You take my drugs or you short me on the sale of some drugs and I am disrespected, I am going to retaliate. We see lots of that happening and then it becomes tit-for-tat.

“What is disturbing is this hardened attitude on the part of the victims who are injured and their family members who are not prepared to tell a pastor, a police officer, any politician or anyone else other than trusted family and friends around them who cause the harm to them because they want to avenge it themselves. So there is this spirit of conflict that prevails where nobody wants to take last. If you wronged me, our people will take that to death.”

The commissioner further suggested that the problem of chronic killings throughout the country was no fault of the police, but rather with the judicial system that continually grants freedom to re-offenders.

“You can fuss the police as much as you would like. You can berate the police as much as you would like and you can ask us to continue to arrest people. But as we arrest them, charge them, take them before court of criminal jurisdictions and in a few short weeks or months they are back re-offending, we are going to continue to have the same discussion over and repeatedly,” Mr Greenslade said.