Police in Berbice are hunting a gang of five bandits, said to be based in Rose Hall, which operates in twos and threes and Commander of ‘B’ Division Ian Amsterdam has asked citizens to be on the alert.
Speaking at a press conference last week, Amsterdam said police had received information that the gang members who usually wore masks would usually hit the Tain and Albion areas.
He disclosed that one was positively identified in the last robbery in Rose Hall. He stated that the police are looking for those persons and working on gathering information to nab the gang at the earliest.
Despite this, he said, “Crime in B Division based on our statistics is going down. In fact, April was our best month.” According to Amsterdam there were 21 serious crimes in the month of April, five being gun related and eight being break and enter and larceny.
He stressed that the two prevalent crimes in B Division have been gun related and break and enter and larceny. He disclosed that over the last two weeks an analysis was done and it was recorded that 50% of the serious crimes were gun related, while 33% were break and enter and larceny.
According to the Commander, gun-related crimes tend to send the wrong signal. He stressed that during the last week there were three serious crimes, in his view, sparking fear in citizens that the crime rate is out of control and on the increase.
He explained that over the last two weeks there had been five gun-related crimes, two in Rose Hall, one in Albion, one at the Number 43 Village and one at Port Mourant. He stressed that B Division was working to ensure it caught the perpetrators.
He stated that more patrols were placed in those areas as well as more intelligence officers.
According to Amsterdam although Berbice started with an increase in crimes compared to last year, currently the situation is under control. He said, “We had 15 murders in four months. We solved eight and two should be solved shortly.”
He emphasized that the police force is working towards lowering the numbers. “Every case is a case we believe should have been prevented,” he added.
