Five people have died in the US Virgin Islands after a *lo**y weekend of violence.
The deaths have led the police chief to caution judges to think twice before releasing criminal suspects.
Police Commissioner Novelle Francis made an appeal after seven people were shot, five fatally, in three separate incidents on the weekend.
He said in the latest incident where four men where shot outside a c**k fight arena on St. Thomas, some of the victims were suspects connected to other gun related crimes.
Two of the men shot in that incident died.
Commissioner Francis said at a press conference held Monday, that the men may have been victims of reprisal attacks.
Change in weapon type
He added that the types of weapons turning up at recent crimes have changed.
According to Commissioner Francis, the weapons that were previously seized at crime scenes were identified as weapons which were stolen from local homes.
However, he said the police are now seizing automatic weapons which are illegal for sale to private citizens in the USVI.
In another of the incidents on the weekend, in which the police shot and killed a suspect, they recovered a machine gun beside the man's body.
The police report that to date, there have been 32 homicides in the USVI compared with 50 in 2009.