By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

RESIDENTS of the Sunlight Village community say they are relieved after community volunteers and officials from the Royal Bahamas Police Force collaborated to demolish an abandoned house identified as long-standing criminal hub.

Assistant Superintendent with responsibility for Centerville Ricardo Richardson said officers are working to eliminate the places that criminals have to run and hide within the community.

ASP Richardson insisted that the area has been plagued for many years with abandoned homes being used to perpetrate criminal activities.

"This is another phase of Operation Demolition, an initiative we started some weeks ago where we are looking at the old dilapidated houses within the area," he said.

"These old houses harbor criminals, giving them a place to hide their guns, hide their drugs."

ASP Richardson said the focus of the RBPF remains to stop crime, but, he added, the police are also working to make the living conditions of residents better.

He indicated that the home torn down at the corner of Fritz Lane and Sunlight Village Road had been left vacant for the last 20 years.

Police officials confirmed that they had received reports that someone had been living in the house in recent years, but ASP Richardson said that after doing their "due diligence" they determined that no family had lived on the property for more than 15 years.

"What we are trying to do is eliminate them. The more of them we eliminate, the less places criminals would have to run.

"We have many more (houses) in Centerville that we are looking to take down, but we have to do our due diligence to ensure that we find out who these homeowners are and then we can speak with them to make sure we are all on the same page."

Thomas Ferguson, a lifelong resident of the area, said that persons in the community banded together in an effort to improve their neighbourhood.

"Recently there have been a lot of undesirable people hanging out in building and residents have been complaining about that," he said.

"We figured the least we could do is come together and try and find a way to get rid of it."

Mr Ferguson's company carried out the demolition free of charge under the guidance of ASP Richardson.

Mr Ferguson said that he and other residents wanted to help their community instead of "always calling on the government to get things done".

"We thought we should start here," he added.

"We haven't put it in dollars and cents, we put it in the value of what it means to our community."

The demolished structure stood two doors down from a community park which at the time of the demolition was filled with children playing and interacting with each other.

In March, officers from the RBPF demolished a number of abandoned homes and removed derelict vehicles in the Fort Fincastle and Market Street areas of Nassau.

The Operation Demolition initiative is part of the Royal Bahamas Police Force’s efforts to remove old, rundown buildings that are frequently used by criminals to conduct illicit activities.