New Year’s rowdy but not fatal

Belize’s New Year’s celebrations managed to conclude without any loss of life, but the revelry was not without a few close calls. In Orange Walk Town, an all night drinking session at a local hotel ended New Year’s morning with a fight between two bar patrons. Twenty-eight year old Rene Juarez of Chan Pine Ridge was charged with grievous harm and other offences after he used his licensed nine millimetre Smith and Wesson to shoot twenty-nine year old Albert Vargas in the hand. Vargas wound up in the K.H.M.H., while Juarez, who was first hit over the head by Vargas, was treated at Northern Regional Hospital.

Meanwhile in Belize City, an off duty police officer trying to break up a crowd of rowdy New Year’s revellers, was rewarded for his efforts by being assaulted and robbed. At around 3:30 New Year’s morning, P.C. Ronald Vernon saw a group of disorderly men breaking pint bottles on Hyde’s Lane. Vernon reports that when he told the men to clean up their act, he was verbally abused and then struck by a number of bicycles which were thrown at him. The group’s apparent leader, believed to be one Kareem Barona, then grabbed a gold chain off Vernon’s neck and ran off. Police are looking for Barona and are asking anyone knowing his whereabouts to please contact the nearest station.