Is Crime a Problem where you are?

With the onset of the recent 'Peace' agreement, it left a vacuum, which is rapidly being filled by BaCrim (Crime Gangs), the consensus local to me is that crime is increasing rapidly, and having more direct effect on Locals than when FARC was around.

I can only talk for Copacabana where I live, and Bello where my Colombian family hang out, the crime rate is shooting up and little is being done to stop it.

We had a Public Meeting at the end of last week, supposedly with the local Commandant of the Policia Nacional, and the Secretaria de Gobierno regarding the rapidly deteriorating Security status, neither turned up, and we were left with a Subcomisario de Policia, who was totally out of his depth, apparently the current situation, is the fault of the Community, the Town Hall, The Mayor, the Secretaria de Gobierno, but not the fault of the Policia. Yet last week alone, nine local people were attacked and robbed walking down the mountain to catch the bus to work in the early morning, on top of that, the number of rural fincas broken into and robbed is sky rocketing. One man at the meeting said that he and his family has captured a burglar in their house, they rang the police, and the response was, what had he done to warrant police attendance!!!! The Police are a total joke.

Two days ago, I woke to find the road outside our finca covered in blood, it was reported to the Police who arrived two hours later, and on viewing our security footage, there had been a knife fight in the road, fortunately not fatal, whether any more will be done, especially if no complaint is made, I doubt it.

In the early hours of this morning, there was a shooting in Copacabana, less than 500m from the Police Station, and yet the people gave up waiting for the Police or Ambulance to arrive and took the victim to the hospital in a private car, where he was pronounced dead. Locals video taped the scene on phones, and sometime later a Police car arrived sirens blaring, they could have run there quicker!

Bello, the main problem effecting people are armed street robberies, and extortion, now it is not only business premises that have to pay protection money, but also individual householders, if they are not in a gated community, the laughable part is, you pay, and get no protection. The Police don't want to know, because many of them are either scared, or involved themselves.

The Local Authorities, have buried their heads in the sand, and deny there is a problem, because those who can make a difference, are not directly effected themselves, and rather stuff the local taxes in their pockets than help the people who put them in power.

Crime was not an issue for me, until recently, but living out in the wilds, it has become an issue, razor wire installed behind thorn hedging, alarms, and cctv installed, now it is just in  the lap of the gods as to whether we receive any visitors, even my Wife who was very blasé about it before, is worried. Until it effects your everyday life, you don't realise.

As far as the local situation is concerned, I can only hope that Law and Order will be restored (as far as it goes) in the not too distant future.