Yesterday, Shyne Barrow's UDP held a 2 hour 24 minute press conference during which the former Minister of National Security, and now Shadow Minister of Home Affairs, accused the police department of underreporting major crimes, particularly murders. He explained that the murder numbers are much higher than what is being reported, but they are being classified as death investigations or manslaughters.
Today, not surprisingly, the ComPol rejected that narrative, and he came prepared to argue against it. He had the UDP's record ready at hand, stating that even if the murder rate amounts to 24 per hundred thousand, it would still be much lower than when they were in charge.
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"There is no false information put out by the department. your figure is 91 and I could understand your 91, you have two in there that one is still not classified, that's the one in San Pedro, and we also have one that is a manslaughter. That's how you reach to 91. We cannot categorize those as murders because manslaughter is not murder and the one that is not classified, we cannot put that as murder at this time so I could understand you but I cannot understand how Peyrefitte arrived at 94. And then to say, to have a country with a murder per capita of 24 is unacceptable I want to give him his record, the UDP record."
"They came into office 2008. 2008, we averaged 31.9 per 100,000. 2009, 30.1 per 100,000. 2010, 40 per 100,000. 2011 37.8 per 100,000. 2012, 43.4 per 100,000. 2013, 29.0 per 100,000. 2014, 35.2 per 100,000. 2015, 33.4 per 100,000. 2016, 33.9 per 100,000, 2017, 38.2 per 100,000. 2018, 37.8 per 100,000. 2019, 34.7 per 100,000. 2020, 26.0 per 100,000."
"So even if he wants to put it at 24, it is still far better than what existed during the UDP 12 years in office."
Jules Vasquez:
"You were commissioner for one of those years, or for two, 2019 and 2020."
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"And you see the numbers down from those years, it started to fall from then."
Jules Vasquez:
"But you were operating at the highest level at the police department, you were officer commanding Eastern Division, in charge of operations, all of these things. You were a part of that pollution."
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Hold on. You can't ask me a question and before I answer, you ask another one because you're not going to confuse me, you'll confuse yourself. Now, five years of the UDP administration, I was at law school. I went to law school 2010. The first two years of the UDP administration, 2008 and 2009, you know I was exiled. So you can say 5+2 that's 7. Then when I came back, you know again we were taking crime down in Eastern Division when I was there and you know what happened, I was again exiled. So please let's not go there, you know the truth so I will tell you I'm not going to say that I am the best but I can say to you that since I became Commissioner of Police, I have worked tirelessly, and you know this, to guide my officers, work with the public with a view to reduce crime."
"He can say what he want at this time but he was here, I'm not going to say anything bad about him, the truth is I do believe when he was Minister of National Security, he worked with us and he did quite a number of good things, so I'm not going to bash him for that but you have to be careful at times when you say things especially when you were already in a position to do differently or to do better."
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