Plenty bullets, but none of them Silver

Bad as the economy is if you ask people about their secret fear for the future the answer is likely to be "Violent Crime". The economy will recover, economies always do eventually, but will crime become entrenched at today's audacious levels?

On any Monday there is a 50/50 chance of a weekend report of a fatal shooting, an armed robbery or a robbery with violence. This on the island where only a few years back the publicity never neglected to mention "There is no crime in the Cayman Islands". That mantra took some liberties with the reality of the situation but there was little or no vicious crime and what existed was not directed towards visitors. While that last part may still be true it has become contingent on how good or bad the aim of the gunmen is.

The time when "The people who kill each other know each other" is passing. Violent crime can't be shrugged off like that any more, nor should it have ever been regarded this casually: that's part of the problem.

Following the upsurge of violence in Ivan's wake old saws like, "No crime here", fell into disuse: the PR message is now the mundane "The Cayman Islands, not as bad as some other places". Let's not slide as far as "Tell your friends you survived The Cayman Islands".

OK that's laying it on a bit thick but these are genuinely worrying times, the more so when a man can shoot another man in the head in a club with 100 other people in attendance and walk after 12 days because there isn't enough evidence to hold him in police custody.

The killer(s) of the young man in West Bay a few weeks earlier (he was the son of a police officer) took the trouble to wear masks. The people who shot up the judge's house recently waited until the dead of night. Not this guy. He could have killed his victim in a more private setting but must have wanted the act witnessed , wanted an audience, wanted to throw down the gauntlet and make the statement "I'm untouchable".

I think it is true to say that there have been more murders than road fatalities this year in the Cayman Islands but two or three years back the media and the letters pages were awash with concern for road deaths and this waste of youth. Now a youth can be wasted and people cross the road, afraid to speak. Talk about money and self is still plentiful though, maybe that's part of the problem.

If there's no magic bullet for the economy there certainly isn't one for crime but catching and jailing the most egregious offenders would be a start. For that to happen people have to talk and the police have to be both effective and trusted. For that to happen a lot of fences have to be mended.

I doubt that Governor Jack was determined to undermine the RCIPS but his legalistic interventions have all been counter productive. Even this late in the day he could salvage some credibility, not to say some of the dignity of his office, by putting gun crime at the top of the Good Governance agenda.

The Don of West Bay and proto-Premier Mac doesn't seem to want to get too involved, even though most of the gun crime emanates from or occurs in his district. I'll be charitable and put that down to Mac being busy "fixing" the economy and his other MLA's being incapable and nothing more sinister than that. Otherwise it implies that men with guns already half-run the island.