Police Maintain Meet & Greet Initiative

Chester Williams

The police department has been on meet and greet initiatives for some time now and today Eastern Division South and North officers were out in the community meeting with residents in an effort to address crime. While officers were in Apollo Street, Urban Avenue, Beltex Avenue, and surrounding areas of Belama, across the bridge, on Central American Boulevard, Senior Superintendent Chester Williams and his team were on the ground. He reiterated that the purpose of the initiative is not to meet with those caught up in the criminal justice system.

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

“It is an important part of what we do in south side Belize City to see how best we can work with the various groups to try and see how they can put aside their differences and try to work with each other. And what we are doing today is to meet and greet with the public and I must emphasize again, the purpose of meet and greet is not to basically interact with those persons who are caught up in the criminal justice system already, these groups per say, but rather to meet with the law-abiding citizens and let them know that you know the police wants to hear from you, we want your feedback, we want your concerns, we want you  to assess, to evaluate the work that the police is doing. So that is the purpose of the meet and greet. But in that same vein, if they have a gang base in the area, we will also visit them and let them know that they are too part of the community and we also want to work with them. So that’s the purpose of the meet and greet today. As you know, the he Boulevard is an area that has to some extent become commercialized in the sense that there are several businesses along the Boulevard now. And what we are doing again today, like we did last week, we are meeting the business community on the Boulevard. In that same regard, we are also meeting the residents, those who live on the Boulevard, to extend the courtesy to them and let them know that the police also want to hear from you and the area where you live is also of concern to us. So that’s what we are doing today.”