Manslaughter Charge for Customs Officer Who Shot Dwayne Almendarez

Rudolph Williams

The fatal shooting of thirty-year-old Dwayne Almendarez on August fifteenth, in Yo Creek Village, has resulted in a single charge of manslaughter being brought against a customs officer earlier today.  Almendarez was among several passengers on a commuter bus who were involved in an altercation with B.D.F. and customs officers at a checkpoint along the Yo Creek Road.  It is alleged that during the incident a single warning shot was fired to break up the fracas, but Almendarez was reportedly undeterred and continued throwing rocks at the officers.  That’s when thirty-nine-year-old Rudolph Williams took aim at Almendarez and fired two shots in his direction, wounding him in the upper body and legs.  Almendarez succumbed to the injuries several days later at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital.  During that time Orange Walk police were conducting an investigation into the matter.  That inquiry has since concluded and Williams was arraigned in the Orange Walk Magistrate’s Court on a single charge for which he was offered bail in the sum of five thousand dollars.  Following Almendarez’s passing, News Five spoke with his brother-in-law who told us that the family was distraught because they felt that the code of conduct by the officers was severely breached on the day in question.

Kirk Augustus

Kirk Augustus, Brother-in-law of Deceased

“Things like that really disturb the family because now, if dis da police checkpoint, you know you have protocols, you have procedures weh need to be followed, you know.  Regardless of whatever di unfold, dehn have protocol by which you uniformed officers, especially Customs Department need to follow.  When we find out that the customs officer didn’t even report this matter to the station, so what’s the protocol as it relates to these types of checkpoints?  So now we just di wait because we spoke with the officer in charge of the investigation and he told us that he had collected some statements, very nice officer, collected some statements and he’s in the process of completing the file, because we got the post mortem, and sending the file to the D.P.P. for her direction.”

The case against Rudolph Williams has been adjourned to September twenty-first.