St. Maarten Private Eye

I find it hard to believe that the Commissioner for tourism for St Maarten would admit to saying 'Crime is rampant. People are afraid to leave their homes' What type of tourism is he trying to attract?

How can any Commissioner stand up in a press briefing and pass the blame to anyone. These people are elected by their island constituents. I don't vote for David Dick.
Roy is the commissioner of Tourism and he should be the first person to say enough is enough, take the bull by the horn and demand that those in a position to equip law enforcement with the tools needed to curb the crime situation on the island do so.
I must say that the police with their limited resources fight and solve a lot of the crime being perpetuated on both locals and visitors. It takes a hell of a lot of paper work to get a conviction. So I must commend our police department.

However, we have to start preventing crime. Once a crime is committed it's already to late.
We often hear that the federal government is responsible for law enforcement, that may we true, but the fact remains that all the island elected officials are responsible. I'm not saying that they are not concern, but we must stop passing the blame. Erno, Frans, William, you all have your part to play. Your demands to Mr Dick should be loud and clear: provide the tools to our police department post haste.

I read your post and I agree with you when you say, we must prevent crime more on this Island. For years the police on the streets are asking for more personnel and equipment to do the work on the streets and no one listen. What our leaders do they send personnel for the detective department to investigate crime after the act. Nothing wrong with wanting to solve the crimes that are being committed, but we should be preventing them from happening first. What does it serve us to hear at year end that the police solve 50, 60 % of the crime committed, while crime has grown by 150% this same year, because we are focusing on solving and not preventing. We need police on the streets to prevent these crimes from happening. These Crimes happens because the criminals know that there are no police on the streets or very little that the chance of getting caught in the act is null. Do we really think that putting extra personnel in the detective department, will stop arm robberies or break-inn etc, think again. All it will do is make the chance of catching the criminal after the fact greater, but it will not stop it from happening. There is talk about camera's etc, this is very good, but nothing can take the place of old fashion police on the beat to prevent crime. It is a while now that the police got marechaussee, my question is did the crime stop, no it did not and will not. Crime will be there always, but we can minimize it with more police on the street. Prevention is the answer and this will be complimented with the solving of the act that can still be committed. At the end of the year we can say we solve 50,60% of the crime committed and because of prevention plan crime has gone down by 50,60 %. that is what the public wants. A feeling of safety, that the police are out there on the streets that the criminal would think twice before trying something..

You said : "Roy is the commissioner of Tourism and he should be the first person to say enough is enough, take the bull by the horn and demand that those in a position to equip law enforcement with the tools needed to curb the crime situation on the island do so."

News flash, this is EXACTLY what he did yesterday and NUMEROUS times over the last few months. The same thing you are critiszing him for! talk about a contradicting post!

You made his points for him beautifully.

I find it hard to believe that the Alliance isn't doing a darn thing to force the Cent. Gov hand on crime on SXM and giving us the monetary resources thats WAY past due to help us combat crime. even harder to believe that nobody wants to hold THEM (Alliance) accountable. We have a two tier government in case y'all forgot.

I agree- it's amazing that the press did not follow up on the story. It would be assumed that the person who offered the Commisioner a free ride in his private jet would want some type of influence or special favor. Roy is the commissioner of Tourism and if he feels that he needs to fly private, then it's the people business. If Roy has other business interest while being a commissioner, then that too is the people's business and it should be the same for all commissioners. Theo set an example for owning other business interests; therefore Roy is thinking the same. If he can do it, I can do it, with more style of course.

The fact that commissioner announced that he was conducting his private business on a private jet ,then, we should continue to ask what other interest the commisioner is working on other the people's business. It show the arrogance of Roy in this case.

He can fly on whatever mode of transportation he so pleases, but be open to the public or the story will live a life of its own and right now it doesn't look good.

First you went after Maria with all your nonsense about conflict of interest while you knew that MR. Martin Gonzales (Hondo, your campaign manager) stole over US$ 20.000,- from TELEM. He resigned and you've publicly among people stated that he did steal the money. Now you come with a lot of accusations of Roy flying in private plans etc. Who rents your building in Simpsonbay? No such a koshure figure and your a senator/island council member.
Who sponsored your campaign from down Cupecoy? Again one of those funny figures that we always blame DP for being involved with. They even said Maria is an experienced mobster on this website but they didn't know enough about YOU. What a joke. You're strickly Mafia partner. From your days at the airport from which you mysteriously had to leave (forgot why already?) to being a senator and calling people names. Be careful my boy as when you do bad unto others it will also be done onto you.

I though Martin Gonzales a.k.a Hondo Rami embezzled 200.000. Not that it really matters. Once a thief always a thief no matter how large or small the loot is.

Well now in the last two days, I have heard of 2 heinous crimes, one on the French side and one on the Dutch side. When are the people of SXM both sides going to stand up to their politicians and demand they stop raping the coffers of the island and hire more cops!
We did this in NY. Hire more cops, give them computers, cars etc. Better pay. Get rid of
the ones on the take. And don't say there are none, there are dirty cops everywhere.
Today a dear friend of SXM was robbed at gunpoint. My dear friend Barbara. You may know her.
She was robbed at gunpoint by local SXM youths. At her Dentist office. Aren't you
outraged? The other crime was an attack on a woman in a villa in Orient Village. Rape was attempted on this poor woman.
This is not crimes against each other, or illegal immigrants or whatever.
These are now capital crimes! Not stealing a beach bag anymore.
I think I will get my fellow tourists/visitors/lovers of SXM to band together and write to
our US State Dept that a travel advisory is necessary.
This is unbelievable. What a shame. Shame on those who take the washing machines and shame on those politicians and their "portfolios". Well, guess I won't get
into the country again.
Sad
irina

governorsxm

Sad, Irina? Yes. Outrageous? Absolutely. Are we not talking about things? Yes and I applaud Flipper and his people for getting us to rise up and speak out. we were a quiet, friendly people accepting any and everything, this is what happened to us. So now we are trying to catch up. but so many things to attend to and yes CRIME must have priority. By this forum we ask the various neighbourhoods and villages to create/donate of their time and come up with 'neighbourhood watch' teams to patrol at night their respective areas.
In the daytime we call on the housewives to play a role in what's taking place around them. We must have in each village a form of townhouse to register each and every person residing there: house nr. number of persons, names, origin, if employed or not, carry out background checks on them. If you are driving around scouting we will report you to the authority and let them deal with it. This is not vigilante style but having each others' back. We have to have patrol teams. The people have gone into hiding and allowing some elements to carry these heinous crimes. Enough.

Sad also is our government because they are tit for tatting while we are being robbed, raped, harrassed day or night to the detriment of this island. It's time to get serious.

There are some areas already working with security team. They perhaps need to beef up their members in those secluded areas. Grand Case has sufficient restaurants to create a watch team. The dutch side must come to terms that the police cannot be everywhere at the same time therefore we have to come up with other alternative. Call community meetings and come up with a plan of action.

There can be no more excuses for this crime wave, It's only a matter of time before someone gets killed

yes, my friends, it has probably come to this.
Neighborhood watch teams is an excellent idea.
We must take steps to protect ourselves. The police simply cannot keep up.

I always told everyone..especially visitors... that if you are careful, if you stay out of desolate places, if you don't carry much money or wear much jewelery......well then, you will be safe.. Just use common sense and you will be safe..
Hah! Obviously not.
The only way to be safe is to not be in the wrong place at the wrong time and how do you do that?
Just stay home all the time?
My experience yesterday happened in a dentist office, of all places!

and your comment..it's only a matter of time before someone gets killed? looks like that just happened unfortunately.

Barbara

I know there have been no blogs focused on crime recently because I'm the one who usually writes them, I'll try to put something up soon, this one however is about Roy's Jet Set lifestyle. If you can't find an appropriate blog to post your comment, please use Flipper's Open Threads.

Dr. Voodoo

are you addressing me?
I am responding to two previous posts on crime. .Please don't instruct me as to where to post.
If the original posts were posted in the wrong thread, then they should have been edited and correctly placed. No need to chastise.
Barbara

There are several people who publish the anonymous comments and sometimes they don't always check to see where those comments have been placed, this is what happens. I just happen to be the one who noticed and made an attempt to fix it and avoid mixed up blogs and threads, my comment was not meant to come across in the way it appears to have done.

To be fair, as Tourism Commissioner crime is Roy's business and therefore the discussion here on crime is relevant.

But to stay on topic, how Roy came to be able to live the jet set lifestyle is a crime in itself.... if the authorities would have the guts to investigate the huge accummulation of wealth in such a short span of time by Roy and his buddies.

Can the people of Sint Maarten as law abiding tax payers ask someone in authority to start investigating Roy's enormous accumulation of wealth in his 6 six years of environmental destruction? Could someone expose him and set an example for our youth and our people. Please help Sint Maarten rid itself of political criminals especially ones that flaunt their wealth while openly laughing at us. Roy himself has even asked for us to crack down on criminals, what are we waiting for?