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Earlier on we told you about all the crime that’s happened this weekend in the city where two murders and two shootings were reported. The Police Department and the government is under pressure to come up with a solution and today they held a press conference to brief the media on their plans. Here’s more.

Hon. Carlos Perdomo, Minister of National Security
“And the purpose for this press conference was to try to share that it is through lack of effort, it is not through lack of planning – there is a major social issue in Belize that everybody, in addition to the Police, have to begin to look at.”

And if he sounds slightly exasperated or overwhelmed, that’s probably because he is.

Hon. Carlos Perdomo,
“There are still cold blooded murderers walking our streets. This is not acceptable. We will aggressively pursue these criminals until they are in jail where they belong.”

And according to CEO Lloyd Gillett, criminal intelligence is their top priority.

Lloyd Gillett, CEO – Ministry of National Security
“Dismantling criminal gangs is the number one priority of our intelligence services. We have also instituted better coordination between the intelligence services.”

And Perdomo says that requires a change in operations for intelligence officers – who were doing a very specific kind of intelligence gathering for the last government.

Hon. Carlos Perdomo,
“The government of the day charged their intelligence unit to do political intelligence, to look at the unions, to look at the Opposition, to look at the press. And so we took over in February and the intelligence units are still doing political intelligence. What we had to do in the next few months while we got into government was to charge the intelligence forces to go back to criminal intelligence and left the damn political thing alone for a while. There is a no government, the people have changed the crooks, they are going to give us a chance to lead so let’s go back to gangs, guns, drugs, and like that.”

And more than just intelligence gathering, the new mission is a complete crackdown – meaning more manpower on the streets.

Allan Whylie, Acting Commissioner of Police
“A rotational duty roster has been implemented at police headquarters and this will allow for the planned shutdown of some administrative areas for short periods weekly. This will allow for the freeing up of additional officers who will be deployed to Belize City to participate in preventative patrol duties in the volatile areas identified. This will also allow people to see a more visible accessible police presence in the streets and in their communities. It is also been recommended that to complement this effort additional BDF soldiers be assigned to work patrol duties alongside these officers.”

And there’s also a gang crackdown.

Allan Whylie,
“As a matter of policy, whenever any persons involved in gang or any other criminal activities are charged by the police for any harassment alarm or distress to two or more persons, a senior officer will be assigned to work with the prosecutor to apply to the presiding Magistrate for the issuing of an anti-social behaviour order.”

And according to Jeffries efforts will target Mayflower Street, the site of the May 16th grenade attack.

Crispin Jeffries, Commander - Operations
“There are certain communities that we can refer to as cul de sacs, dead end streets, no go areas. We will be challenging the other agencies as part of the multi-agency task force to have us enter those areas and I speak particularly, with no regrets, of the Mayflower area. It has long been an area that the police can only go in and has difficulty at times to get out. We believe that if one would look at any of the Belize City street maps, you will see that Logwood Street should travel all the way up and join Pine Street and not stop where it stops.

That area for the last 25 years, much of my police career, I have gone in there as a young constable and as an assistant commissioner trying to deal with crime problem. It has never been an area that we’ve taken the serious will to correct. It has had its political coverage as well as its neighbourhood coverage. Mayflower Street has yielded the most single street death among young people over the last 20 years. Any statistical analysis will show you that and it will decrease unless we do something more positive than we are doing right now.”

And what they will be doing is cracking down on bicycles.

Crispin Jeffries,
“We will be targeting bicycles. We believe that a number of young criminals transit the city area and target people in the tourist areas on bicycles. We will be dealing with that and I am saying so because I know there will be a few radio calls complaining about the police taking away bicycles. We’re going to surgically do this, we will analyze the outcome and we will ensure that as little as possible inconvenience is caused.”

But, according to Jeffries, the problem can be solved.

Crispin Jeffries,
“We believe that crime and incidents of street crimes have been on the increase. There is a little amount of persons that are involved. We’ll be targeting known suspects as Mr. Whylie pointed out to ensure that we complete the prosecution process for many of those who are running around our streets and have five and ten cases lingering in our court system. We will make an extra effort to speed up the prosecution process.”

And while there’s no simple solution catchphrase that will make citizens feel safer, CEO Gillett did hazard a try at one.

Lloyd Gillett,
“In the spirit of the Olympics what we want to do is to run the criminals off the street, dive into preventative measures against crime, and jump to the defense of the public.”

And before you could say increased patrols in hotspots, 7NEWS has received a report just a minute ago indicating that there was another shooting on Flamboyant Street a few minutes ago. Details are scarce and unconfirmed and we hope to have more before the end of this newscast.