The Cayman Islands Government held a press conference yesterday, February 26, 2024, where the Premier of the Cayman Islands, Julianna O’Connor Connolly, Her Excellency The Governor Mrs Jane Owen, the Commissioner of Police, Kurt Walton and Roy McTaggart, the Leader of the Opposition, shared their concerns about the shooting at the Ed Bush stadium on Sunday, February 25. The discourse included an offer by the Government and Crime Stoppers of a reward of $250,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible.
Based on a statement from the Commissioner of Police, shots were fired at the start of the second half of the football game. This occurred in “a section within the Ed Bush stadium which is more to the northeast corner” near the changing rooms but not in the stands themselves.
He explained that “A group of persons had congregated there watching the football match, and we’re working on a hypothesis that a single shooter came across an open pasture which adjoins the Ed Bushfield and opened fire on that group.”
Given that the shots appear to have been fired at that group and not the general stadium crowd, the Commissioner of Police believes “this was clearly a targeted attack.”
Concerning this, he believes that the shooter was trying to “get an individual or individuals that were just happening watching a football match among 20 to 25 persons.”
To support the police’s theory about the precise location of the shooting, the Commissioner of Police shared that the police “recovered multiple spent casings from the scene, which is on this open pasture, not on the football stadium side.”
While no one reportedly died in the incident, the Commissioner of Police reconfirmed media reports that seven victims were transported to the Health Services Authority. As of yesterday, two were discharged from the hospital.
Notwithstanding that there were no mass killings on Sunday, the Commissioner of Police said, “This could have gone horribly… if you could imagine where this shooter would think it necessary to get after his target, would shoot into a group of 20 to 25 persons just to get after his target and have no regard to human life whatsoever.”
He added:
We’ve never seen anything like this before.
We certainly had no indication that we have an uptick in our gang violence and tensions at the moment, that it would spill over into such a public domain.
This is certainly a whole different issue we’re dealing with at the moment.
Although no arrests were confirmed at the press conference, the Commissioner of Police assured the public that he would “spare no expense when it comes to having additional offers coming in on duty,” and everything would be done to bring this person or persons to justice.
Her Excellency, The Governor, also expressed her concerns about the shooting.
She said:
I do recognise the very serious level of concern and distress that this tragic incident yesterday at the Ed Bush football stadium in West Bay has caused.
It is hard to imagine how alarming it would have been to have been there.
And my heart goes out to all of you who witnessed and were part of it. And especially as I know there were a lot of families there and people with small children.
And as a mother myself I find it amazing that some people have actually come back to work today, including in this government building, despite having been through that.
She added:
For me as Governor, with my responsibility for security on these islands, I join all of you in recognising that this feels like a watershed moment.
It feels like we have in some way had a glimpse through a window into what could happen if the threats that we face from crime and criminality and other dangers, and if the menace continues to increase, particularly involving violence and guns. I think we’ve all looked through that window and we are united, united in believing that is not somewhere that the communities in Cayman are prepared to countenance going. And if we want to avoid that, we’re going to need to work together.
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She continued:
So, my real message to you is let’s see what more we can do together.
We have for some time and certainly since I have been here since last April, but way before that, we have been working together effectively with the police, with the Customs and Border agencies, with the coast guards, with the schools and the medical professionals, with so many people who are responsible, including our emergency services for trying to combat these threats that we face. And the sort of the sort of response we’ve been discussing involves prevention, obviously awareness, including of the awareness of how are these guns, particularly these dangerous guns, these big guns, are getting into our islands. We need better awareness of that.
She concluded:
Legislation is certainly an area we will be looking at again and of course enforcement where we are lucky to have extremely competent and well-trained police force, not just the officers who are out there, but the investigators and the detectives and the ballistics unit and everybody behind them. So, we are lucky to have that, but it will only be successful if we work together.
And the final thing I wanted to say to start this is that we know that everybody in the community needs to work together and share information if we are going to tackle this.
Because we cannot do prevention or enforcement or any of the other important policies that we are pushing forward if we do not have the information on the people we need to go after, the people we need to help and support. And so, I would appeal to all of you out there listening today. If you have information, however small, please do come and share it with us.
The Leader of the Opposition also shared his comments.
He said:
On behalf of the Opposition, our hearts go out to the victims of the recent shooting and we fervently hope that this for their swift recovery.
Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families during a very difficult time.
He added:
The Commissioner and RCIPS, they have our full support and our confidence and so today I want to give thanks too to the Premier for inviting me to sit here on this panel, primarily to show and to demonstrate to the country that all nineteen of us in Parliament we are joined up together in unison and unity to try and combat this scourge and bring this kind of violence to an end.
I’m delighted to be here and to stand shoulder to shoulder with every member of the Government and assure them of the support of the Opposition in tackling this issue that we have before us.
Following the statement from the Leader of the Opposition, the Premier shared her concerns.
She said:
I certainly wish to go on record and thank all of my colleagues, all eighteen of them on both sides of the House, for seeing the importance of this, that we suspended Parliament for the lunch hour to have a meeting… just concluded in this building… to get a proper and full briefing from our Commissioner. It was co-chaired by the Governor and myself and I’m really, really saddened to see and to hear the full details of this most brazen incident that occurred at the Ed Bush playing field last night.
She added she was aware that there were groupings in Cayman “which evolve into some form of gangs,” but not necessarily the ones that can easily be identified by “their tattoos or by the commonalities of open, conspicuous displays.”
While offering her deepest condolences to those injured, she noted, “This is not a time to be divided in the country” or to play “political football” with this serious issue.
She then noted that Crime Stoppers came forward and offered a reward of $50,000 for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for the crime. In addition, she disclosed that the Government met and decided to approve an additional $200,000, bringing the total reward to $250,000.
The Premier indicated that a large reward was being offered because the incident “is a novelty for Cayman” and one that she wanted to “nip immediately in the bud.”
She added that there is “zero tolerance for this type of behaviour in this jurisdiction.”
