SVG: Police offer reward

CMC –  Police in St. Vincent and the Grenadines on Wednesday announced an EC$50,000 (One EC dollar=US$0.37 cents) reward, for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the mass shootings in the capital that left five people dead, including a 13-year-old boy, on July 19 this year.

“All information received in these investigations will be held in the strictest of confidence,” the police said in a statement.

Police said that D’ondre Hillock, Jamall Bobb, Lamont “Dutchy” Hector, Rickey Taylor and 13-year-old student Kashie Primus, died when the occupants of a vehicle shot them on the night of July 19, in the Harbour Club area of Upper Kingstown.

SVG: Five killed in mass shooting

The police have given several telephone numbers for the public to call reminding them that “there are provision in the Witness Anonymity and Special Measure Act that permit people to give evidence without their identity known to the accused or his/her lawyer”

In addition, the authorities said the witnesses could give evidence from an undisclosed location outside of the courtroom or overseas, or use voice modulation or have their faces blocked out.

Evidence could also be given via video link.

Soon after the shootings, Police Commissioner Colin John said the island remains a very safe “despite the regrettable spate of violence that we are currently experiencing in St. Vincent and the Grenadines”.

Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalve, who was out of the country at the time of the killings, said he remains confident that the police will solve the mass shootings.

In April, Gonsalves told a regional symposium on crime held in Trinidad that some men have chosen a life of crime because they have to mind pretty, high-maintenance women.

“The fact of the matter is that they are a small minority from the disadvantaged communities from which they come. Most of them, overwhelmingly, have chosen the life of crime. Let us not get away from that,” Gonsalves said.

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