NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Activist Khandi Gibson is calling for the police to expand on ways to make citizens feel more comfortable and willing to share sensitive information related to serious crimes.
Gibson, head of a non-profit organization, Families of All Murder Victims (FOAM), said many people in the community are still reluctant to share crime tips with law enforcement because they are not confident that the information will be kept confidential and could put their lives and the lives of those close to them in danger.
She spoke with Eyewitness News following a brutal double homicide on Monday.
“I feel like if the people now can trust the relevant sources and they can reach out in confidentiality, I feel like you can’t trust nobody now because everybody knows everybody,” Gibson said.
In recent years, law enforcement has implemented a number of strategies to incentivize and encourage the public to communicate with the police for sharing information on sensitive matters like murder and serious crime; including publicizing emergency hotlines that individuals can call anonymously.
However, Gibson said that there needs to be another layer of protection because people are often asked to refer or give the names to officials of their sources and from her experience, in some cases when witnesses don’t come forward on their own, the tip may not be pursued.
“I don’t even know if that’s helping because we have plenty unsolved murders in this country so it gotta be somewhere where persons really feel safe like, once I hand over this information it goes to the relevant authorities and they can now take action.
“[…] People have a fear that if they tell the police, the police will tell the people; or people family know people and they call them you know, and so people fear cooperating with the police.”
The FOAM founder said that she believes that police should take a greater initiative to pursue anonymous tips regardless of how much information is shared.
“When the police have intel, they have to have intel more to the ground now because ain’t no one is wake up say they going to kill ‘Khandi’.
“It’s already talk in the street […] people already hear what’s going on. So we’re asking police right now to up the intel.”
Familiar with the deceased individuals from the Monday morning murder herself, Gibson said that in instances like this one, people in the community should stop pointing fingers and judging victims, and instead come together in prayer and support for healing.
“I know him very well and its sad he went like that but nobody’s perfect. At the end of the day, don’t care how bad someone loved one is that’s still their loved one, that’s still a mother’s child.
“[…] Its not a good way to start off a new year […] throughout the years we see persons don’t value life no more they killing children, they killing men, they killing females,” Gibson continued.
“It just startled me because I don’t know what else we could do because once a person make up in their mind they gonna kill you, they don’t care, the streets now have no code.”
Gibson referred to millions in funding under the Citizen Security Justice Program, loaned to the government from the Inter-American Development Bank as a potential solution to patching the relationship between the police and residents who don’t feel safe with sharing sensitive information.
