I expect most of you have seen the video circulating on social media of two police officers trying to stop 200 bikers at a roadblock in Bodden Town.

The copy I received was titled “Keystone Cops”. It was an apt description. Watching two officers on foot running after people on motorbikes who performed circles around them, and taunting the very people paid to protect them, was sickening to me. Other viewers of the video were probably laughing themselves sick.

Law abiding citizens of the Cayman Islands it is not funny.

We receive every week police reports of how many of our normal law abiding citizens they have ticketed, the large majority for trivial offences eg. tinted windows, obstructions,etc., yet this illegal ride through our streets resulted in little more than three arrests and twenty bikes seized.

As this ride was not sanctioned and it started around lunch time last Sunday, why was it left until after 3:30pm to put a roadblock in place on Bodden Town Road manned initially by only two police officers?

Last year’s ride was highly publicised by the police that it would be the last one. There would be a crackdown on illegal motorbiking.

There hasn’t!

Yes, there should be a place for these young (and what I witnessed not so young) people to use but their behaviour on Sunday has done nothing to help their cause.

To see them on our roads endangering not only their own lives, but all other road users, with their dangerous antics, including popping wheelies, speeding and making as much noise as they possibly can, made by blood boil with anger.

Some months ago I was confronted by one of these young motorbikers right outside my house. He was riding a four wheeler and racing down the road at high speed and noise on just the back two wheels. He started his race right outside my Living Room window. After putting up with it for nearly an hour I went out to him, asked him how much longer he was going to do this and took a picture of him. The bike incidentally had no license or road plates.

He drove his bike up to me and used every filthy description of me and my mother (who he didn’t know) and when I held up my smart phone and asked him to repeat it so I could record his message he drove off and then swung the bike around. He then charged the bike full speed at me, expecting me to turn and run. I stood my ground and at the last minute he swerved and stopped a few yards away. That was when my 75lb German Shepherd, who had watched all this, leaped and landed on his bike snarling.

I stopped the dog, Sugar, from eating him and pulled him off. The sudden change from a cocky young lout into a frightened pussy cat was a sight to behold. Without another word he rode off and I never saw him again.

I did report it to the police and gave them the photographs but never heard another thing about it.

My reason for recording this incident is to ask the police why, when they are dealing with these cocky young individuals who have no respect for officers of the law, they don’t employ the resources of their K9 unit.

The Keystone Cop incident would have turned out very different.

It would have been the bikers running and not the police.

For those of our readers who are not aware who the Keystone Cops were this is an extract from Wikipedia:

“The Keystone Cops (often spelled “Keystone Kops”) were fictional incompetent policemen, featured in silent film comedies in the early 20th century. The movies were produced by Mack Sennett for his Keystone Film Company between 1912 and 1917.”

I am not saying our RCIPS are incompetent. They were, unfortunately, made to look just that last Sunday.