Supt Shannondore Harold Evans admitted yesterday that he knew nothing about Haitian teen gang activity in Yamacraw.
In charge of the Eastern Division, Supt Evans said while officers are working on other matters in the area, he had yet to receive an official complaint about rowdy teenage behaviour from Haitian quarters.
Residents revealed exclusively to the Guardian on Tuesday that Haitian gangs were terrorizing the neighbourhood and threatening to “take over”.
But Supt Evans insisted, “Personally, I don’t know anything about their complaints. We have been working that area from the time I was head of this division and that has been from the year 2000. We have our sources in that area and we are activated when they call us. We have conducted raids on that Haitian village. We have executed warrants and we have made arrests there as well. But as far as a group developing in that area, I don’t have any information to that effect. I believe some of those residents are complaining but have not in fact called the police.”
Residents have insisted that these young men are making life really uncomfortable in that middle-income, eastern New Providence area.
“As history records it, Haitians were always into revolution,” said a female resident of the area who was unwilling to give her name. “I do not take lightly any threat that these young men make. Those people have a different culture from us and they think nothing of taking another’s life. Look at the crime stories, for example, you can see names we can’t even pronounce. Those people are young Haitians or Haitian-Bahamians and they are committing the majority of crimes on this island. We are sick of it and the police need to do something.”
Haitian teen boys have allegedly organized themselves into a gang called “Zoe Pound” and have been seen wearing t-shirts with those words. Supt Evans said he was not familiar with “Zoe Pound” operating from that area.
In its tour of the Haitian village on Tuesday, a Guardian news team noticed numbers painted on each dwellilng shack. Haitian villager Nadia Desimore said inspectors from the Ministry of Health arrived earlier that morning and sprayed each shack with a number. She revealed that the inspector said the exercise was carried out to make the Ministry aware of how many shacks were in the village and to see to it that no more are built.
Ron Pinder, Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Health, said he was aware that inspectors, assigned to that village, sprayed warnings on derelict vehicles to notify owners that they were to be moved but was unaware of the numbering of the shacks. He said, however, that the government intend to offer ‘low cost house ownership’ to certain residents of the village who were considered Haitian-Bahamians or who were already naturalized.
There is no running water in the village nor does it have a sewer system. Residents of Yamacraw complain that Haitians throw their waste in nearby bushes or just simply use the bushes as a restroom.
Supt Evans is asking residents in the Yamacraw area who are experiencing this problem to call him on his private telephone line 364-1700 . He said residents should feel comfortable calling him as this line is not equipped with Caller ID and they need not give a name.
By: Tanya M. Cartwright, Nassau Guardian Associate Editor
