While the Team Unity Government of Prime Minister Dr. Timothy Harris tells the country and the world that crimes is trending downwards, the murder statistic for January this year, shows a whopping 200 percent increase compared to the same month in 2017.
With two more days to go in this month, three murders in the past 12 days in St. Kitts and Nevis, have rocked the Federation and pushed the number of murders to three compared to one in January 2017.
“The situation otherwise is so sad and sickening. If this is so it would be #3 in the Federation and the months not done yet. If kept up 36 for the year? asked a female Nevisian on her FaceBook account when news broke that a body of a young male was discovered on Saturday night.
She agreed that it was important that members of the public post factual information.
“Someone has to, because if not done, we would never hear about some of this and the only thing we will hear is the ‘country running good’,” she said.
The lone victim in January 2017 was 44-year-old Leon Gumbs of Morning Star, Nevis, whose body was found with two gunshot wounds on the 21st.
The first murder for this year occurred on 17th January when 19-year-old Cleon Browne was gunned down in a hail of bullets as he walked along the road in Rawlins Village, Gingerland, Nevis.
The second murder occurred also in Nevis on January 21st, when the body of 45-year-old Shirley Dawn Morton was found at the home of her boyfriend Wayne “Spyer” Chapman.
Twenty-three-year-old Shaquille Pemberton is the third murder victim when his body was found on January 27, not far from the airport control tower in the Gillard Meadows area, St. Kitts.
Although news releases from the St. Kitts and Nevis Information Service (SKNIS) and the Office of the Prime Minister mislead that crime is trending down, police statistics show a 12 percent increase in 2017 over the previous year.
There were 414 reports of larcenies in 2017 compared to 390 in 2016. There were 81 reported armed robberies in 2017 compared to 57 in 2016.
Possession, importation and smuggling of firearms offences increased from 34 in 2016 to 38 in 2017.
Possession, trafficking and importation of drugs offences also increased from 283 in 2016 to 395 in 2017.
Double digit increases were also registered in malicious damage to property from 86 reports in 2015 to 169 in 2016 and 213 in 2017.
Overall reported crimes increased from 1,050 in 2015 to 1,665 in 2016 and 1,868 in 2017.