Turks and Caicos po­lice say Hait­ian gangs are be­hind the first known mass shoot­ing in the British Over­seas Ter­ri­to­ry (BOT), which re­sult­ed in “a mass ca­su­al­ty” event on Sun­day.

Po­lice said that three peo­ple were killed and 10 oth­ers in­jured dur­ing the in­ci­dent that oc­curred at the Is­land Hookah Lounge on Lee­ward High­way, Prov­i­den­ciales. The iden­ti­ties of the de­ceased are be­ing with­held pend­ing for­mal no­ti­fi­ca­tion of next of kin.

The au­thor­i­ties are of­fer­ing a re­ward of US$10,000 for in­for­ma­tion re­sult­ing in the ar­rest of those re­spon­si­ble for the shoot­ing and the Roy­al Turks and Caicos Is­lands Po­lice Force is al­so urg­ing any­one with in­for­ma­tion to come for­ward through of­fi­cial chan­nels or anony­mous­ly via Crimestop­pers.

In a state­ment, the po­lice said that Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Fitz Bai­ley is ask­ing the pub­lic and me­dia “to re­spect the pri­va­cy of the vic­tims and re­spon­ders and to re­frain from spec­u­la­tion as we work to man­age this in­ci­dent”.

But speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence, Bai­ley, flanked by Pre­mier Charles Wash­ing­ton Mis­ick, say they be­lieve that Hait­ian gang-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence is be­hind the Turks and Caicos Is­lands’ first known mass shoot­ing.

Bai­ley de­scribed the “mass shoot­ing” in­ci­dent as “deeply dis­turb­ing “ and that pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tions and CCTV footage sug­gest at least four shoot­ers armed with high-pow­ered weapons were in­volved.

The po­lice said that while the mo­tive re­mains un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion they sus­pect in­ter-gang or in­tra-gang con­flicts, with a par­tic­u­lar fo­cus on Hait­ian gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

“This was in­dis­crim­i­nate vi­o­lence meant to in­cite fear,” Bai­ley told re­porters, adding as­sur­ing the pub­lic that the po­lice and part­ner agen­cies will main­tain a vis­i­ble pres­ence to keep res­i­dents safe.

Pre­mier Mis­ick ap­pealed to the Hait­ian com­mu­ni­ty, say­ing “we are now hav­ing a gang­land-type slay­ing, and a lot of this gang vi­o­lence seems to be con­cen­trat­ed in our Hait­ian com­mu­ni­ties.

“I’m go­ing to ap­peal to our Hait­ian na­tion­als, our Hait­ian broth­ers and sis­ters, the lead­er­ship in the Hait­ian com­mu­ni­ty, to make a con­cert­ed ef­fort. The gov­ern­ment stands be­hind those per­sons who are law-abid­ing, legal­ly res­i­dent in this coun­try, who wish the best for their fam­i­lies and the oth­er cit­i­zens of these is­lands. And we want a di­a­logue with you,” Mis­ick said.

Pre­mier said he be­lieves in­di­vid­u­als with­in the wider Hait­ian com­mu­ni­ty are not on­ly in­volved in the vi­o­lence but al­so have crit­i­cal knowl­edge of how il­le­gal firearms are en­ter­ing the coun­try.

“You know who these vi­o­lent crim­i­nals are. You know how guns are get­ting in­to the coun­try. And while I’m speak­ing pre­dom­i­nant­ly to the Hait­ian com­mu­ni­ty, be­cause that is where most of the vi­o­lence seems to be com­ing from, I want to speak to every­body else, be­cause I be­lieve these crim­i­nals are be­ing aid­ed and abet­ted by per­sons who know who they are and who are do­ing it for gain.”

Pre­mier Mis­ick said his gov­ern­ment is res­olute in tar­get­ing not on­ly the per­pe­tra­tors, but al­so any­one fa­cil­i­tat­ing or pro­tect­ing them, warn­ing that new re­sources will be di­rect­ed to law en­force­ment to en­sure of­fend­ers are cap­tured and pros­e­cut­ed.

“We do have leg­is­la­tion on the books, and we will be re­sourc­ing the po­lice to the high­est lev­el to en­sure that you’re cap­tured and dealt with. Whether you fa­cil­i­tate or aid and abet crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, or whether you com­mit it, we will be pro­vid­ing the re­sources, in­clud­ing places to keep you.”

He warned al­so against turn­ing a blind eye to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“Let this be a warn­ing to every­one: those who know some­thing and are not speak­ing, those who are aid­ing and abet­ting crim­i­nals, and those who are com­mit­ting crime. Let it be known that this gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing that the Turks and Caicos Is­lands is a safe place for peo­ple to live and to raise their fam­i­lies.”

Act­ing Gov­er­nor Anya Williams said that the in­ci­dent has been de­clared a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty crit­i­cal event, with all pro­to­cols ac­ti­vat­ed.

“I have al­so been in con­tact with the Gov­er­nor (Dileeni Daniel-Sel­varat­nam) who is cur­rent­ly away from the coun­try and have in­formed the Unit­ed King­dom of the cur­rent arrange­ments, is­sues here in Turks and Caicos Is­lands, hav­ing al­so reached out to the Na­tion­al Crime Agency for sup­port. We are tak­ing these mat­ters very se­ri­ous­ly. The hos­pi­tal is cur­rent­ly on lock­down to en­sure pa­tient safe­ty.”

So far this year, 22 peo­ple have been killed here and Com­mis­sion­er Bai­ley not­ed that up un­til last week, the ter­ri­to­ry had been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a 30 per cent re­duc­tion in mur­ders.

But he ac­knowl­edged that the re­cent dou­ble homi­cide of two broth­ers and this mass shoot­ing have sig­nif­i­cant­ly un­der­mined those gains.

“This deeply dis­turb­ing event has shak­en fam­i­lies and the wider com­mu­ni­ties,” Bai­ley said. “We ex­tend our sin­cere con­do­lences to all those im­pact­ed and reaf­firm our stead­fast com­mit­ment to en­sure jus­tice is served.

“While we con­tin­ue to up­hold and re­spect the prin­ci­ples of hu­man rights, we are equal­ly res­olute in recog­nis­ing and de­fend­ing the rights of vic­tims. Those who have suf­fered through loss, in­jury, or trau­ma de­serve jus­tice, com­pas­sion, and the full pro­tec­tion of the law.” —COCK­BURN TOWN, Turks and Caicos Is­lands (CMC)