Commissioner admits Police got calls but missed the bullet riddled car in Dock Yard

By Dana Malcolm 

Staff Writer

#TurksandCaicos, November 4, 2022 – Police did receive calls about gunshots on the night of Monday October 31, and how they followed up on those reports will face official scrutiny. After much public outcry Police response to calls of a shooting in Dock Yard on October 31 are under review. The announcement was made in a statement on Wednesday by Trevor Botting, Turks and Caicos Police Commissioner.

Notably Botting did not say what organization was carrying out this review or if it was internal and would be carried out by the police.

Three members of a family of four including a three year old were murdered in a hail of bullets on Monday. Residents reported hearing the bullets as early as 8:26 pm but it took almost 12 hours for police to make it to the scene of the crime.

Now Botting is admitting that the police received multiple calls about gunshots fired in the area and that “There is a strong possibility that these gunshots were related to the attack that led to the deaths of the three people discovered in Dockyard during the early morning of the 1st November”.  He also maintains that his officers responded to those calls but called off the search when they didn’t find anything ‘in the immediate area.”

“Comment has also been made that Police Officers did not respond to these reports. This is not true.  Police Patrols did attend the area of Timber Crest and searched the immediate area. The vehicle was found outside of this immediate search area by members of the public the following morning.”

The Commissioner did not explain what constitutes an immediate search area or say whether there was any follow-up to the incident throughout the night or early in the  morning.

Police have been either tight-fisted with the results or negligent in actually conducting reviews in the past, with no transparency when it comes to the outcomes of the so-called, ‘reviews’.