B.D.F. Volunteer Shot Near Democracia Junction
Joshua Martinez
A twenty-one year old B.D.F. volunteer is tonight at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital awaiting surgery after he was shot multiple times on Friday night in La Democracia Village. Joshua Martinez got off a bus from Belize City and was sheltering under a bus shed at the corner of the George Price Highway and the Coastal Road with his sixteen year old sister. Moments later, three male persons approached and one of them pulled out a gun and fired six shots in their direction. Martinez was shot to the right arm and left upper back. He was rushed to the K.H.M.H. via ambulance. His mother, Dorita Bardalez came to News Five studios today; while she says she has no idea why someone would want her son dead, police say that the motive appears to be gang related.
Dorita Bardalez, Mother of Shooting Victim
“I found out my son was shot when my son-in-law give me a call on my phone and tell me to hurry come out here because three men just come out here and shot your son, Joshua Daniel Martinez. And I just pick up from there and I ride my bicycle and I went there. When I went there, I found him in a pool of blood; bleeding and bleeding. And they called the police and the ambulance, but the police had to meet the ambulance halfway because he was washing with blood.”
Duane Moody
“How is he doing now?”
Dorita Bardalez
Dorita Bardalez
“Well he is no doing too bad. He is still talking and he has the tube in him.”
Duane Moody
“I understand that he was shot to different parts of the body. Tell us about that and what the doctors are saying.”
Dorita Bardalez
“The doctors noh tell me nothing up to yet. They ker he fi wah x-ray this morning and they noh tell me anything up to yet—whether they will give him a surgery today or tomorrow or when, they noh tell me nothing as yet. He’s a volunteer soldier. He come and he works and he go home back and he is not a trouble boy.”
Duane Moody
“So why would someone want to fire shots at him?”
Dorita Bardalez
“Well Duane, I noh know why. Every day that Joshua goes to work, he goes back on the last bus, nothing happen to him. I don’t know why, why the reason they want to kill him.”
Hilberto Romero
Supt. Hilberto Romero, O.C., Crimes Investigation Branch
“Investigation was conducted and one Adolphus Palacio was arrested and charged for attempt murder, dangerous harm and use of deadly means of harm.”
Duane Moody
“Sir there was two other persons along with Mister Adolphus when the shooting happened. Is there any investigation that will happen in regards to those other two persons?”
Supt. Hilberto Romero
“Again statements have been recorded from several persons but we are looking at all avenues. But at this time, only one person has been charged and further investigation is being conducted and we are looking for more persons.”
Reporter
“Have investigators been able to ascertain what led to the shooting?”
Supt. Hilberto Romero
Adolphus Palacio Jr.
“Well we believe that the shooting may be gang related. Again, we are looking further into it, but at this time that is where the investigation is pointing.”
Twenty year old Adolphus Palacio Junior was arraigned in the courtroom of Chief Magistrate Anne Marie Smith this afternoon for Attempted Murder, Use of Deadly Means of Harm and Harm upon Joshua Martinez. He was remanded to prison until November eleventh. Palacio Junior was additionally charged with one count of Professing to Belong to a Criminal Gang, to wit, the George Street Gangsters Bloods.
