Shooting on North Side Leaves Teens Injured

Chester Williams

But there was a third shooting in the Old Capital, this time on north side. Nineteen year old Gary Young was shot on the wrist and a sixteen year old minor was shot on the buttocks at the corner of Barrack Road and Pickstock Street. According to Young, they were approached by three men, an altercation ensued and as they walked away, several shots were fired causing their injuries. They were transported to the K.H.M.H where Young was treated and released, but the minor remains hospitalized in stable condition. Senior Superintendent Chester Williams says that police were prepared for the violence.

Sr. Supt. Chester Williams, Regional Commander, Eastern Division South

“That was anticipated. We recognize the fact that on carnival day, there would be a number of persons consuming alcohol and we know how some Belizeans behave…we cannot go and celebrate and drink and go home peacefully. Some of us want to…when we get drunk, that’s when we realize that we are macho and we want to be out there creating mischief. And the police were prepared for that, but like you rightly said, the amount of people on the street that night was just too much for us to have been able to control. Nonetheless, we were able to get a grip of the situation and see how we could have reorganized our patrols that night to prevent any further shooting or to prevent any retaliations reference the shootings that took place that night. On the event of carnival, that’s when we had the swelling of police officers on the ground. But after carnival subside, we begin to reduce our manpower because we had officer who came in from Belmopan and they had to go back to Belmopan. So basically after the carnival we had our ordinary reliefs patrolling and working at the different strategic locations that we normally cover on a daily basis. So around that time of the night, our manpower would be like any ordinary day.”