WE ARE 36 days into the new year and already 19 Bahamians are dead and several others are in hospital fighting for their lives.

Over the weekend - Friday and Saturday – two men were killed in separate incidents within 24 hours of each other and five were in hospital.

A simple game of dominoes was being enjoyed by a group of young men in a restaurant and bar on St Vincent Road when a car pulled up, fired several shots and sped off. Soon the sirens of police cars and ambulances could be heard speeding to the scene. One man was dead.

Shortly after 10pm, a man was standing on Washington Street when a gunman walked up to him, shot him, then fled on foot. That victim is in hospital. Earlier that evening – around 7:30pm – two men were sitting in a car on Durham Street off Mount Royal Avenue when two men with handguns approached, shot them, then took to their heels and ran. The victims were taken to hospital, one died, the other is fighting for his life.

Early the next morning – this Saturday – two men were shot on Coconut Grove Avenue. They were taken to hospital where they are in stable condition. The problem with police statistics is that the public never gets the true crime picture — they only hear about those who die, never about the survivors who are maimed for life.

Within 24 hours this weekend, unsuspecting Bahamians were being used as target practice by the criminals. These were the very criminals that the PLP assured Bahamians that if elected in 2012, they would quickly rid The Bahamas. They promised the gullible that they had the secret formula to solve our growing crime problem.

We did not believe them, but many less informed Bahamians did. Anxious to be able to live without bars on their windows, they voted them in as the government. Now as the end of their five year term draws near – already with 19 Bahamians dead in the first 36 days of 2017 – they are back with their begging bowls filled with bogus promises, and excuses as to why they couldn’t keep their promises the first time. You must understand – according to them – they need more time to complete their mission.

It was Prime Minister Christie, who as opposition leader on August 15, 2011, said that crime was the result of bad governance - in other words the Ingraham government didn’t know what it was doing. As Grand Bahama MP Neko Grant remarked in 2015, the PLP will “forever curse the hour” that they erected those large murder posters showing that under the FNM murder was out of control in the Bahamas. No sooner in power – just a few days after the 2012 election— murders started to increase. By 2014 a frustrated prime minister, looking for a scapegoat for his party’s failure, decided to drop the ball on the police: “I said to the minister of state, I’m not prepared to have my own legacy, my own reputation, be tied to a total reliance on the Royal Bahamas Police Force and to the leadership of that force.”

And now we have PLP Chairman Bradley Roberts, trying to shift the blame onto former Assistant Commissioner Marvin Dames, who will represent the FNM, as the candidate for Mount Moriah in the 2017 election.

“It’s a shame that after years of service with the Royal Bahamas Police Force,” said Mr Roberts, “Marvin Dames is now trying to distance himself from some of the very anti-crime policies he designed and implemented. When the PLP entered government in 2012, we were faced with an underfunded police force, an underfunded education system, coupled with a court system burdened with a huge backlog of cases.

“This was what Dames and his FNM party left us to clean up,” yammered Mr Roberts. Excuses, excuses and more excuses. Probably if the Christie government had listened to the trained police officers the country would be better off today.

It would be interesting to know what State Minister for National Security Keith Bell brought to the government. After all he joined the police force in 1985, resigned in 2008, having been trained locally in police work. He then contined his studies to qualify as a lawyer.

Weighed in the balance, Marvin Dames has far superior qualifications in police work than has Mr Bell.

Mr Dames holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Criminology from Ohio State University, and a Post Graduate Certificate in Criminal Justice from the University of Leicester, United Kingdom. Additionally he holds a Post Graduate Certificate in Police Management from the Institute of Legal Executives.

He has also participated in a number of courses including: Fellowship – Yale World Fellows, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; International Strategic Leadership programme (ISLP), Bramshill, United Kingdom; FBI Academy and Senior Command Course, Bramshill, United Kingdom.

Mr Dames also holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Criminology from Ohio State University, Ohio, USA and a Post Graduate Certificate in Criminal Justice from the University of Leicester, United Kingdom. Additionally he holds a Post Graduate Certificate in Police Management from the Institute of Legal Executives.

Mr Dames has also participated in a number of courses including: Fellowship – Yale World Fellows, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; International Strategic Leadership programme (ISLP), Bramshill, United Kingdom; FBI Academy; Senior Command Course, Bramshill, United Kingdom.

“It’s a shame that after years of service with the Royal Bahamas Police Force, Marvin Dames is now trying to distance himself from some of the very anti-crime policies he designed and implemented,” said Mr Roberts in a press statement yesterday. “When the PLP entered government in 2012, we were faced with an underfunded police force, an underfunded education system, coupled with a court system burdened with a huge backlog of cases.

“This was what Dames and his FNM party left us to clean up.”

And in 2015 National Security Minister Dr Bernard Nottage, also trying to slide away from his party’s election promises, had this to say: “And if the people believe we can just wave a magic wand and solve the problems that we face, they have got a sad awakening.”

They certainly have. But this time we hope they understand that the PLP never had a solution, and it is foolhardy to try to play the same sour notes to the Bahamian people to secure their vote.

We suspect that if the police had been allowed to do their job for which many are well trained, this country would not be in the sorry state that it is in today.