The murder count for July rose to 20 on Saturday morning, easily exceeding the record of 16 established only four months ago in March. Prior to that, the record stood at 12, which also occurred this year in January. Before this year, the most murders that had occurred in one month was 11.
The Nassau Guardian reports that, in his recently published book – “Reducing murders in The Bahamas: A strategic plan based on empirical research”, Sergeant Chaswell Hanna of the Royal Bahamas Police Force noted that the previous record of 11 murders was achieved four times: October 2005, December 2006, November 2007 and September 2009.
“We’ve never had [20] murders in one month,” confirmed Assistant Superintendent Anthony Ferguson.
“Obviously the police, and as a country, we really have to be concerned about the amount of violence that we are having.”
The most recent murderous activity included three people being killed in an apartment off Carmichael Road. A man was shot in the back and two women, one of them pregnant, were shot in the head. So, actually, including the unborn child, it was four people murdered in one incident.
The country’s murder toll so far this year stands at 85. Last year there 54 murders by the end of July.
