GOVERNOR AND POLICE COMMISSIONER DISCUSS SECURITY ISSUES WITH DOMINICAN REPUBLIC COMMUNITY: PLEDGE POLICE’S COMMITMENT TO FIND PERPETRATORS
The Governor, Peter Beckingham, met separately on 19 July the Premier and Police Commissioner and representatives of the Dominican Republic community to discuss the recent murder of a DR citizen, and developments since then. The Governor said,
“I told Edwin Hernandez, a member of the DR Consulate-General, and members of the community how saddened I was to hear in London, when I was there last week on official business, of the tragic murder of Sorineida Moreno-Arias. Following the earlier murder of another DR citizen this is a tragic loss of a young life. I told the community that we have also reported these incidents to our Ambassador in Santo Domingo.
“I said to the community that I had complete confidence in the Police Commissioner and his team who I knew were doing everything in their power to bring the perpetrator of this awful crime to justice. Commissioner Smith, who joined me for the meeting, and I underlined that the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force would leave no stone unturned to arrest the individual or individuals concerned.
“Commissioner Smith and I also said to the DR representatives that we had no objections to the community arranging lawful events to express their anxiety at these recent incidents. I was grateful for the reassurances of the DR community that any gatherings should be peaceful, and that they regretted the isolated attacks on the police by a small number of their group.
“The Premier, Minister of Finance, Commissioner of Police and I also had a useful discussion about wider security issues. We agreed that we should consider a number of options to strengthen security measures across the community, as well as providing our reassurance to the public at large that we believed the RTCIPF, who had our full support, were working as hard as possible to solve all outstanding murders in Grand Turk and Providenciales regardless of when they were committed. We will consider options at a further meeting of the National Security Council next week, and subsequently hold a further meeting of the Security Council Advisory Group.”
