Public cooperation and support bolster police operations

(PRESS SEC) – Intelligence-led policing is impacting positively on the operations of the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force (RSCNPF).

For instance, some of the 21 illegal firearms removed from St. Kitts-Nevis communities so far this year were seized during the execution of search warrants.

Search warrants are issued due to probable cause based on evidence gathered during the course of investigations, such as information provided by community members.

Indeed, the RSCNPF’s six-point action plan to reduce homicides and violent crimes in the Federation mentions as an objective the daily execution of search warrants targeting known offenders and their associates.

The goal is to make our communities safer by confiscating illegal items and bringing criminals to justice.

“When we find illegal firearms, we do the ballistics immediately [to link the guns to violent crimes] and we are seeing some important results coming out of that,” Andre Mitchell, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) with responsibility for the Crime Directorate, told the Press Unit in the Office of the Prime Minister today, Monday, May 15th, 2017.

“The information that we get from the general public – and have gotten over the last couple of weeks – really undergirds our very efforts and what we are seeing, in terms of our targeted police operations and our intelligence-led policing,” ACP Mitchell added.

“Behind the scenes, people have been cooperating, giving us information and really expressing a level of confidence in the police, which have led us to be able to find these number of firearms,” he further stated.

The Assistant Commissioner of Police with responsibility for the Crime Directorate continued: “We’re talking like eight [firearms] in the last week; that’s a significant find. We’re talking about other items – we have recovered a bulletproof vest, as well as electronic items that were stolen from homes, so there is a whole net of items that we have recovered.”

The 21 illegal firearms that have been seized so far this year comprise almost 60 percent of the total (36) seized in 2016.