Dominican leader announces sweeping police reform, anti-gun measures

President Danilo Medina on Wednesday promised to implementmeasures to fight crime and gender violence in the country, if reelected for asecond term.

Speaking at the at the American Chamber of Commerce’smonthly luncheon , Medina said he submitted a bill to Congress to create Law 911 to Controland Regulate Firearms, and the Police Reform Law, initiatives he affirms"will allow us to take a giant step towards having a safer, more reliableand peaceful country and with a modern police."

"The Police will generalize the quadrant system as amethod of prevention. To this end, it will map the entire territory and areaswith a higher presence of crimes to receive reinforcements, police surveillanceand joint patrols.," Medina said.

He promised stronger measures on bearing and possessing weapons"so that people with a history or pending cases of violence can’t get accessto licenses […] and, additionally , we will promote plans to collect illegalguns and those whose possession or carrying cannot be justified."

Panic Button

Medina also announced the implementation of a "panicbutton" system that will help women report assaults against them."This is a Panic Button that not only alerts the police and preventsaggression, but also records the audio of what happened, and thus serves asevidence in court."