Commissioner of Police Highlights Need for Crime Prevention Amid Robbery Incident

Today’s incident highlights the need for police to prevent young people from marginalized communities from falling victim to a life of crime, according to the Commissioner of Police. One of the robbers, 19-year-old Leroy Garoy/Rhaburn Jr, is no stranger to the media. In 2005, he was shot while only four months old when an attempt was made on his father, who lived a life of crime and was killed in 2009. Today, Williams weighed in on the youth walking in the footsteps of his father and how it underscores his take on the detention of the 13-year-old, who is a known gang affiliate.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police: “You see that a lot. It’s a trend. The young ones we’re dealign with now are the junior to the ones we dealt with fifteen/twenty years ago that’s the trend. Certainly there needs to be more done within the homes. As I said before it must start at home and when the home fails then it resorts to social intervention and when that fails it ends up in the hands of the police. So as much as the media and sometimes society tends to blame the police for crime we are not the ones to be blamed. At the end of the day we are at the end of the funnel in terms of when all odds fail and then the person ends up offending it’s then the duty of the police to do what needs to be done. It goes to the heart of what I  have been saying that there needs to be more done in terms of making sure that there is adequate level of interventions. At the end of the day many of these young people may be suffering from post traumatic stress disorder having seen their loved ones being killed and so they grow up with a mindset that they can’t wait to reach that age where they can hold a gun and they can retaliate. And so something needs to be done to ensure that we stem that. I know that the LIU though the leadership of Ms.Norales is doing a lot working with community rehab to see what can be done in terms of doing counseling of family members of those person who have fallen victim to gun violence and I think that the work that she is doing needs to be commended. Sometimes we don’t give things the level of credit that it rightly deserves but there is a lot that is being done through LIU to try and help these young people.”

Williams says he urges parents to pay keen attention to their children.