Gun crime ‘rife’ in BVI, Ullger warns
Acting Commissioner of Police Richard Ullger has described gun crime as “rife” in the Virgin Islands, disclosing that officers have seized 18 illegal firearms since the start of the year.
Ullger made the disclosure during an appearance on the Talking Points radio programme, where he was questioned about steps the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force (RVIPF) has taken to reduce gun crime and prevent firearms from entering the territory.
“Whether we like it or not, gun crime for such a small place is rife. And we can’t hide from the fact that there are a lot of illegal firearms. I mean, this year we’ve already seized 18 illegal firearms on our territory,” Ullger stated.
He said some people possess the weapons illegally for protection, while others use them to commit crimes, a development he described as very worrying. The Acting Commissioner also linked firearms to the illegal drug trade and pointed to the BVI’s proximity to the United States Virgin Islands, where he said gun laws are less restrictive.
Ullger said the prevalence of illegal weapons has also affected how officers approach their duties. Although he would prefer to see police patrol without firearms, he said current conditions require officers to protect themselves.
“I would love to see our police officers patrolling our streets without any guns whatsoever, but unfortunately that’s not the place we’re in,” Ullger stated.
He said the RVIPF is working with the National Security Council to explore increased sentences for firearm possession, giving courts greater scope to impose penalties intended to deter offenders.
“If people understand that they’ll go to prison for a longer time for being in possession of firearms, they’ll think twice about it,” Ullger said.
The police force also established a specialised team several months ago to concentrate on detecting illegal weapons and bringing offenders before the courts.
Previous firearm cases have also involved young people. Police recently charged a 14-year-old boy with murder in connection with the shooting death of Eric Albert in Greenland in 2025. Ullger announced the charge on September 9 but said the law prevented police from releasing further details because the accused is a minor.
Ullger said the police cannot address the problem without information from residents, whom he described as the force’s “eyes and ears”.
“Whether we like it or not, our community knows who has the guns, without a shadow of doubt. So if they want us to be effective, they need to support us,” Ullger added.
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Until the Automatic Minimum Sentencing bill is passed guns will stay on the streets!!!
the police need to track down how they are getting these guns in here and close down that pipeline
Not surprised
Our current culture cause this
Our youths are easily impressionable and we still continue to promote our new “culture” that is infested with vulgarness, fast life behaviour, anti police, smoking, drinking, being promiscuous, protecting predators who work around kid’s etc
We literally had local artist on stage with big gold chains bragging about their fast life and having multiple partner’s.
We have young girls and women proudly shouting “she luv gun man, ” she luv badman” then those same people and them friends will come online crying stop the violence. Them know who the gun man is but crying stop the violence. I’ll never take the party crowd seriously
Gunshots sounded off and murders happened during festival and nobody stopped the partying for a second. Shows how desensitized we are becoming.
Plenty youths attending those events a many of young boys throwing up gun signs with them fingers alongside the half naked minors and women.
Our culture stinks and it’s the source of the problem. If you look and see who defends the current culture is dudes with big chains, women who dress half naked, single mothers, unmarried women, smokers, people who love to party, and predators. There opinions on the current culture is clearly biased cuz they are a product of it and continue to benefit from it.
All the young people wearing ski mask at the events what you think y’all promoting??
The current culture teach low self respect , zero morals, anti police, vulgarness , promiscuous behavior, drinking, smoking and partying your problems away, broken homes, single parent homes , unmarried women, women who are attracted to “gunman” “badman”
Health authority came out stating 4 new cases of HIV and discovered that young girls Are prostituting to older men and from what street saying it is school girls! Yet no outrage.
They are all Good Boys and “Businessmen”
With the Mainstreet Restaurant closed probably fewer guns on the streets..
There’s minimum deterrence to households with wild and dangerous children.
In the real World Mom/ Pop would be held equally liable or more liable for that murder.
If there are other children in the household they too would be removed and housed in a protectiv nvironment,away from the nonparenting ,dont give a shite parents,..immediately..,charged with child neglect.
Instead they benefit monetarily from their children crimes and keep on popping out more infidels for the continued decimination of these
VI.