By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

Tribune Staff Reporter

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

POLICE Commissioner Clayton Fernander disagrees with Free National Movement leader Michael Pintard, who believes the anti-gang bill passed in the House of Assembly earlier this month may make criminals out of innocent parents.

The bill says anyone harbouring a gang member could be jailed for up to 20 years. If the gang member or gang leader is a child, their parent would be convicted for harbouring them.

Mr Pintard argued that many parents do not know the double lives their children lead.

Commissioner Fernander, however, said yesterday: “We do our investigation. That’s why it’s called investigation. Either we charge you or we roll you out, and that’s what we do.”

Defending the bill, Commissioner Fernander highlighted the case of 16-year-old Davinique Gray, who was murdered in her Nassau Village home on January 6.

Shinikia Johnson, the girl’s mother, was charged with harbouring a fugitive, a man police believe was the intended target of her daughter’s killer.

“We could highlight several examples where innocent people, children, are losing their lives because individuals are harbouring these gangs,” Commissioner Fernander said yesterday. “So we support that bill and we are looking for it to roll out quickly.”

Commissioner Fernander also discussed efforts to capture suspects of recent murders.

He noted that Friday, a man was charged with two counts of murder in connection with the deaths of Chatere Wells and Dino Smith on Prince Charles Highway in January.

He also said the alleged murderer of a 42-year-old Water and Sewerage Cooperation (WSC) sub-contractor appeared before the court on Friday and that three people were charged and arraigned yesterday in connection with the death of a 33-year-old man who was shot and killed during an argument outside a local nightspot on West Bay Street on April 15.

Meanwhile, he said, investigations are ongoing concerning an Office of the Prime Minister’s employee whose 44-year-old boyfriend, Philip McPhee, Jr, was granted $1,500 bail on Friday after he allegedly injured her in a domestic incident. Some close to the man alleged that the woman threatened his relatives.