Did cops shake down city youth?
Did a police officer misuse his authority to rob a Belize City man? That’s the troubling question police internal affairs officers are trying to answer. According to Darlene Lewis, she sent her son in law, Daniel Zuniga, on an errand to pay her bill at Courts on the Northern Highway, but as he approached the location a police vehicle pulled up and he was assaulted and relieved of his belongings.
Darlene Lewis, Complainant
?Well, on Saturday February twenty-sixth, about one thirty, I asked him to go and pay my Courts bill. He said he had to go to the bank first to get some money so that he can have food to eat for the week. He is like my son; he?s always at my house in his spear time. So he went over there to the bank and after leaving the bank on his way to Courts, almost in front of Courts the police officers came by and stop him, and they rubbed him down and because he asked them what are they searching for one, P.C. Usher, punched him up in his stomach and in the back and even threatened him by sticking a black nine millimetre gun in his head and told him that he would blow his brains, stick him in his stomach with the gun again and he decided to push him away and fight back. When he pushed him away the officer grabbed the school bag that he had on his back and threw it in the pickup truck. He had a corporal along with him, a tall strapped, fair skin corporal that didn?t do anything but sit there and look on at this incident. Two BDF officers were with him Mr. Usher had on an A.D.U. uniform. He then told Mr. Zuniga to disappear from the area before he came back and get him. In the schoolbag Mr. Zuniga had his passport with his U.S. Visa, his Atlantic Bank book and his VersiTel Card, his Belize Voters I.D., his Social Security Card and my Courts card along with two hundred and seventy dollars…all that gone.?
?I want the public to know that I am sick and tired of the police officers and what they are doing to our young people out there. They are the ones who cause the young people to have bad feelings towards them and another thing I want to suggest maybe these officers high in authority should seek to it that these police officers wear their numbers on their shoulders because when you go and they ask you who is the officer, you cant even identify because they don?t have on a number and it?s very unfair to us the public.?
Lewis, who is an asthmatic, says she became frustrated after she went to the police station to lodge a compliant. Lewis claims the police had her making several trips on both sides of the city between the police station on Raccoon Street and the Criminal Investigation Branch on Queen Street. Lewis says if she does not get any satisfaction from the authorities she will secure an attorney and pursue the matter further. Meanwhile when News 5 contacted the police, we were told that a complaint was lodged and they are investigating the incident.
