Alexander urges communities, families to unite against criminals

Shane Su­perville

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der is call­ing on com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try to take a more ac­tive role in stand­ing against crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty fol­low­ing a triple mur­der in Laven­tille.

Po­lice said three men, Keon Alexan­der, Dwayne Alexan­der and Jesse Nel­son, were killed out­side a home in Mc­Shine Lands at about 1 am on Fri­day.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment on Fri­day, Alexan­der said he was deeply con­cerned by the con­tin­ued blood­shed but re­mind­ed the pub­lic that the safe­ty of their com­mu­ni­ties was al­so their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

He urged cit­i­zens to sup­port and part­ner with law en­force­ment to al­low de­ci­sive ac­tion against crim­i­nals.

"Start to re­spond to the crim­i­nal be­hav­iour as a peo­ple and don't let any­body make a de­ci­sion for your own safe­ty.

"This is not a call for any­one to arm them­selves and take the law in­to their own hands, but get to­geth­er as a com­mu­ni­ty and start op­er­at­ing in such a way to make the crim­i­nals un­com­fort­able.

"The more sup­port these crim­i­nals get, the more blood will flow, so you can sit and do noth­ing if you want to or you can do some­thing about it. This is about cit­i­zens who are be­hav­ing like they are out of con­trol."

Asked whether he had a mes­sage for the per­pe­tra­tors of Fri­day's triple mur­der, Alexan­der de­clined to com­ment, say­ing he had "said every­thing he want­ed to," but ad­dressed fam­i­lies of peo­ple in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

"These (crim­i­nals) re­turn home to a place they con­sid­er safe, but the peo­ple on the street know who they are and what they do.

"I am call­ing on fam­i­lies... I am warn­ing you that if you en­cour­age peo­ple who are 'hot', mean­ing law en­force­ment or oth­er crim­i­nals are look­ing for them, the con­se­quences are of­ten yours to bear.

"Stop sup­port­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers in crim­i­nal ways."

Alexan­der added that while some rel­a­tives may not con­sid­er them­selves di­rect par­tic­i­pants in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, they are of­ten the ones who face se­ri­ous le­gal and po­ten­tial­ly fa­tal con­se­quences.