Acting Assistant Commissioner Martin Weekes - The Bermuda Police Service would like to thank the Bermuda Public for their support and assistance over the Cup Match weekend. As you will be aware there were no serious incidents throughout the long weekend despite huge crowds at the game, the Non-Mariners and the many other events that took place. The few problems that occurred were limited to minor outbreaks of anti-social behavior mainly by young teens. These problems in some instances caused the Bermuda Police Service to close down certain events in order to prevent further escalation of anti-social behavior. 

Whilst acknowledging the support and assistance of the public in assisting the Bermuda Police Service to keep the peace it would be unfair not to draw the public’s attention to the hard work and dedication of the police officers, Reserve officers and Bermuda Regiment soldiers who sacrificed their holiday weekend to Make Bermuda Safer. Officers were out on land and on the water to reassure the public, disrupt criminality and prevent gang violence.

This doesn’t happen by accident. Hours of preparation and planning were put in and long shifts were worked over the weekend to put that plan into action. This operation which was conducted over five days from Wednesday night until Monday morning was of course extremely resource intensive. The decision to make it so was taken consciously knowing as we did that some of the events were likely to attract thousands of people.

Whilst we are happy that our efforts to disrupt gang members and prevent the transport of weapons across the island were successful over the Cup Match weekend we acknowledge that there is often a knock on effect on the law abiding citizens who get caught up in road checks designed to target gang members. To mitigate the inconvenience to law abiding citizens, this weekend the Bermuda Police Service introduced a new concept which we termed the “Yellow Card." In the case of persons stopped for minor traffic offences officers were given the option to give a verbal caution instead of traffic ticket. These verbal cautions were accompanied by the issuing of a “Yellow Card." The card had a space where the offence committed was written in by the officer along with the following wording,

“You have received a verbal caution for………. Thank you for your cooperation. You are encouraged to drive safely and to have an enjoyable Cup Match Weekend.”

The one area this system wasn’t used however was in the issuing of parking tickets. The Bermuda Police Service identified several areas throughout the weekend where parking became an issue. In every case tickets were issued to vehicles that were causing problems by parking where there were centre yellow lines. The main problem being that by parking in these areas the width of the road became restricted and therefore would have prevented emergency vehicles such as fire trucks and ambulances from progressing along that particular road in the event of an emergency. Clearly this is a safety issue and more particularly so on holiday weekends when there are large numbers of persons gathering. We therefore appeal to the public in future to consider this when choosing where to park their vehicles.

Finally on behalf of the Commissioner of Police, I would once again like to thank the Bermuda community for helping us Make Bermuda Safer this Cup Match.