Burglary suspect claims police brutality

A Belize City man, Herbert Wilshire, who’s no stranger to crime and punishment, is complaining of police brutality. Wilshire’s sister, Angela Francis, visited our studio this morning to register her displeasure with the shooting of her brother by police last night as he was apprehended in Ladyville. News 5 spoke to Francis and Wilshire at his hospital bedside.

Herbert Wilshire, Shooting Victim/Alleges Police Brutality

“When I looked I saw men start to appear from all corners, all angles of the bush, men with big guns. I surrendered and Corporal Card still shot me. He shot me in my leg. When I dropped to the ground Mr. Henderson told me, “I want the money. I want the fifty odd thousand dollars that I hear you have.” Mr. Henderson encouraged them to stand-up on the same foot that they shot me in. He is telling me about fifty odd thousand dollars that went missing from Food and Beverage, and all he wants me to do is give him back the money and we won’t make any case.”

Angela Francis, Sister

“At the starting of the investigation, Mr. Henderson was talking to us on a professional basis and we didn’t have any problems with Mr. Henderson at the beginning of the process. We abide and we co-operate. Each and every time we go and ask him, “Mr. Henderson, what’s happening, what’s happening.” I don’t have any problem with Mr. Henderson and I know to myself that it’s his colleagues or his co-workers that I have the problem with, because Mr. Card is a trigger-happy man, I know him. The way I see it, if a prisoner surrendered himself, why shoot him? This person wasn’t armed.”

Wilshire is accused of being involved in the July burglary of Food and Beverage Company, where a safe containing thirty-thousand dollars in cash and eight thousand, five hundred dollars in goods was stolen. News 5’s efforts to contact Corporal Henderson were unsuccessful.