Commissioner of Police Kurt Walton says he is confident that, although no one had been charged in relation to last year’s mass shooting at the Ed Bush Stadium, that the person or persons responsible were behind bars for other firearm-related offences.
Speaking at a press briefing on crime and traffic statistics on Wednesday, the commissioner confirmed that, although arrests had initially been made in relation to the shooting in which seven people were injured, no charges had been brought.
However, he said anti-gang and anti-firearm operations carried out by police in the aftermath of the shooting had led to the culprits being caught for other offences.
“Following the shooting, we implemented a number of robust policing initiatives”, which, the commissioner said, resulted in having “an impact on certain policing units, including my traffic unit, my community policing unit, to deal with this issue of the scourge of firearms in our community”.
He said during this initiative, police recovered 15 firearms and “led to the arrest of a number of individuals who have been incarcerated since, and while we may not have charged anyone, and without going into specifics and details, I am confident that we’ve arrested persons who were involved for other offences, such as firearms”.
In the days and weeks after the shooting, police arrested three men, ages 21, 24 and 30, all of whom were released on bail without charge in relation to the Ed Bush shooting.
Walton, at Wednesday’s press briefing, described the mass shooting as a “watershed moment” for the Cayman Islands.
Following the shooting, which greatly alarmed the local community, the commissioner, along with Governor Jane Owen, hosted a packed public meeting in West Bay to address residents’ concerns.
Walton, at the time, told the audience there was an “insatiable appetite” for guns in Cayman, and he described the shooting as “indiscriminate but not random”, as the shooter had targeted intended victims who had been standing in a crowd of 20 to 25 people.
The commissioner, in a statement in the foreword of the RCIPS’ annual report on the crime and traffic situation, said it was “a miracle there were no fatalities”.
He added, “This event, combined with gang-related tensions in the first four months of the year, has led to an increase in our serious violence figures.”
He noted that, although the shooting had driven up last year’s statistics for “firearm-enabled attempted murders”, compared to those of 2023, overall firearm crime had fallen by 21%, “which demonstrates the priority I placed on tracking the scourge of firearm-related crime in our community”.
Last year saw 14 attempted murders involving guns, compared to six in 2023, with seven of those linked to the Ed Bush shooting.
