11 murders recorded this month
Reports of multiple shootings on several islands on Saturday
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — A man was shot dead while playing a game of Backgammon on Grand Bahama on Saturday, while two more men were killed in separate incidents on Abaco and New Providence in what was a weekend of bloodshed.
Police said the victim was playing the board game with another man around 6pm when a gunman approached and shot the victim in the chest before fleeing into nearby bushes.
The victim was transported to Rand Memorial Hospital, but died sometime later.
A man has been detained and is assisting with the investigation, police said.
On Abaco, police found a dead man on the ground with gunshot wounds not far from a white Honda around 4am Saturday in Crocket Drive, Marsh Harbour.
Details were limited on the killing, but police said investigations were ongoing.
Just two hours before the murder, police said a woman walked into Marsh Harbour Clinic with gunshot wounds and reported that she had been shot while standing outside of a business establishment on Don McKay Boulevard.
Around 7pm, on New Providence, a man and woman sitting in a vehicle outside their Comfort Street home heard gunshots.
The man did not realize he had been shot until moments later.
He was transported to hospital, but died from his injuries.
It remains unclear if he or the woman were the intended targets.
Another man, who was sitting outside of a home on Halifax Road, Stapleton Gardens, was approached by a lone gunman and shot several times around 9pm that night.
He was last listed in critical condition in hospital.
Around 11pm on Grand Bahama, a man at his Pinedale, Eight Mile Rock, home heard gunshots and discovered that the front on his home had been damaged.
There have been a spate of murders on the Family Islands and numerous other shootings in the last few months.
When asked whether authorities had observed a trend, Minister of National Security Wayne Munroe said Grand Bahama is an island that experiences murders in cycles that tend to be gang-related or domestic incidents.
In a recent interview, Deputy Commissioner of Police Clayton Fernander acknowledged the Royal Bahamas Police Force must disrupt gang activities throughout the nation to prevent retaliations and turf wars from getting “out of hand”.
Police Commissioner Paul Rolle is expected to release his policing plan for 2022 in the upcoming weeks.
Munroe has foreshadowed that a phased expansion of the closed-circuit television (CCTV) program is in the works.
