The killing of a foreign national and the shooting of a teenage boy put an emphatic point last week on a recent flurry of gun-related violence that has injured four and left one man dead on Grand Cayman since the beginning of the month.

Some of the incidents that occurred between 4 March and 11 March were believed to be gang-related or retaliatory. Others, such as the 11 March shooting death of Marcos Duran, were believed to have stemmed from robbery attempts.

Also drawing unwanted international intention during that week was the robbery and assault of a US Coast Guard sailor who was on shore leave in downtown George Town. Police arrested a suspect for the attack on Friday.

“We need to stop this,” Royal Cayman Islands Police Superintendent Marlon Bodden said. “It’s disrupting our way of life.”

Attorney General Sam Bulgin said Friday that he would be proposing several changes to criminal procedure laws that would allow cases to move more quickly through the courts and which would also allow police to arrest individuals for more minor offences.

“But legislation alone won’t help us to tame this beast,” Mr. Bulgin said. “We need people power.”

People on the Islands, meanwhile, are growing more upset and concerned with the spate of gun violence. Nine of the last eleven homicide victims on Grand Cayman have been killed with a gun.

“It’s got to a point where people’s businesses, families livelihoods – the risk has got too high,” said Cayman Islands Tourism Association President Steve Broadbelt. “We’ve either got to act now or it’s going to keep getting worse.”

The crimes

It was a beautiful night in West Bay on Thursday, 11 March. A stiff breeze was blowing in from the northwest, but the waves that were kicking up onto the iron shore weren’t keeping throngs of visitors away from the Cracked Conch restaurant and neighbouring Macabuca bar and grill.

A large group of about 20 visitors who arrived around 7.45pm had puzzled expressions on their faces. One man said he had seen eight police cars and two ambulances just around the corner on North West Point Road near the Bonnie’s Arch complex.

Word quickly spread: it was a shooting.

Just down the road, a resident was sitting on her patio enjoying the cool night when she heard three loud bangs – like the muffler falling out of a car and striking the road. A relative came running around the corner yelling about a man being shot.

“I heard a woman screaming (from the apartments on Maliwinas Way – just off North West Point),” the woman said, speaking to the Caymanian Compass on condition of anonymity.

Other witnesses said a man, later identified as Mr. Duran, was shot in the stairwell of a two story apartment on Maliwinas as he tried to escape from suspected robbers. A white vehicle was seen speeding off just after the shooting.

Mr. Duran had been shot in the head. He was rushed to the Cayman Islands Hospital in George Town where he was pronounced dead.

Seven minutes after the Maliwinas Way violence, a 16-year-old male was walking along Capt. Joes and Osbert Road in West Bay, not too far from where the first shooting occurred. An unidentified man opened fire on him, getting off as many as six rounds, according to witnesses.

The teen was struck in the leg and was expected to recover. Rumours circulated that this attack had been retaliatory, but police declined to speculate.

Police said there appeared to be no connection between the two shooting incidents.

The two shootings on 11 March occurred about the same time of night as two other West Bay shootings just a week before on 4 March. Two men were injured in separate attacks that night on Miss Daisy Lane and Birch Tree Hill Road.

Those incidents were followed by an early morning shooting on 5 March, in which an unidentified assailant opened fire on several cars parked on Templeton Street in George Town. No one was hurt in that incident.

A woman was hurt in George Town later that day. She was shot in the face in the parking lot outside Barnes Plaza, but survived. Police arrested a 32-year-old man in that attack.

The plan

Superintendent Bodden - a Caymanian and one of the top criminal investigators in the RCIPS – knows that the recent spate of violent crimes represent more than just an urgent need to take a few bad guys off the streets.

“It’s about our way of life,” he said Friday. “Everyone wants Cayman to have that relaxed, cool feeling. But we’ve lost that now, to an extent.”

Mr. Bodden said high visibility police patrols would continue in West Bay, along with island-wide roadblocks and random stop-checks.

“We will be checking and searching individuals to disrupt suspects’ travel patterns,” he said. “We’re serious about this.”

Legislation to assist the police and court system in prosecuting criminal cases has recently been passed in the form of the Criminal Evidence (Witness Anonymity) Bill and the Bail (Amendment) Bill.

But Attorney General Bulgin said more, and stricter, laws are on the way.

Government lawyers are considering legislation that would allow police to caution – arrest – individuals for minor infractions, disorderly conduct and the like. Specific details of the plan have not been released.

Mr. Bulgin said he’s working with the court system to draft laws that would allow an individual to be tried for murder charges at the same time as they are tried for other offences that may have been committed in connection with the killing. Right now, those offences must be tried separately.

Another step being considered is to eliminate long-form preliminary enquiries altogether, Mr. Bulgin said. Those enquiries are essentially mini-trials held in Summary Court which decide if there is enough evidence to send a case to the Grand Court.

Mr. Bulgin said he’d like to get the system to a point where a suspect charged with a “class A” offence (the most serious of criminal offences) would have to make just one appearance in Summary Court before the case is moved to the Grand Court.

“There’s no point in having the matter languish before the magistrate,” Mr. Bulgin said.

The attorney general said he is aware that many members of the public are crying for stricter sentences for criminal offenders. However, Mr. Bulgin said he’s not sure how much further sentencing options can go in the Cayman Islands.

Current maximum prison sentences for murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, aggravated burglary, and kidnapping are all life in prison. In fact, judges have no other option but to give a convicted murderer a life prison sentence in Cayman.

Firearms-related offences carry a maximum 20-year sentence and a minimum 10-year sentence, unless there are extraordinary circumstances in the case determined by a judge – in which case a minimum sentence of seven years can be applied.

There is also a maximum 20-year sentence for anyone convicted of membership in a gang or who participates in gang activities. However, that section of the Penal Code has never been used in any Cayman Islands criminal case.

“I am not the court, but I could say that I am satisfied with the length of sentences for most of these offences,” Mr. Bulgin said.

Doing business

Both the Cayman Islands tourism sector and the real estate industry said last week that they are starting to feel the effects of recent crimes - or the perception of crime - on Grand Cayman.

“Crime is something that’s really difficult to talk about,” Mr. Broadbelt said. “We keep hearing promises… but at some point you have to draw a line in the sand.”

Mr Broadbelt pointed at close neighbour Jamaica as an example of the impact that crime levels could have on a destination.

“They’ve created these resorts with barbed wire fences around them to keep criminals out but to keep the guests in as well. It’s become a successful business model but because they’re keeping them in and safe they also kind of trap them and get every last dollar out of them.

“One of the negative things about all-inclusive resorts is the economic benefit from the resorts is not spread to the wider community. It’s all for one and other businesses get very little out of these all-inclusive resorts,” he said.

At this stage, he said he was not aware of any plans for well-known inclusive resorts to come and set up on Cayman or for any of the current hotels and resorts to move in a dedicated all-inclusive and walled direction.

Local realtors, faced with a declining international economy in any case, said the recent violent crime on Grand Cayman has added insult to injury.

“One trend is that a select few overseas property owners and investors who have been in Cayman for many years are considering selling their property, due to concerns about their own and their family’s personal safety,” said Kim Lund of Re/Max.

Mr. Lund also noted that some of the overseas customers coming here to invest in a vacation home are reading the newspapers and are shocked by the violence and level of crime. 

“An important reason for them to come here and invest is the safety aspect and our reputation for having low crime levels,” he said. “These potential purchasers are starting to have second thoughts about investing, whereas a few years ago, they would not have had any hesitation.”

J.C. Calhoun of Coldwell Banker said he thought people were “overreacting” about news of crime in the Cayman Islands last year.

“I hear it a lot more now,” Mr. Calhoun said. “People are very concerned and are rethinking spending their time here.”

“I have been getting calls and emails from clients who have been coming here for many years asking what is going on with all the crime.”