2019’s Main Causes for Murders

Chester Williams

In 2019, we saw heinous and unbelievable murders. The official number of murders has yet to be determined and will be released in 2020 but by our count, it is dangerously close to 2018’s murder count which is a hundred and forty-four. The majority of the murders in 2019 were caused by three main elements: gang activity, domestic violence, and alcohol. Commissioner Chester Williams says that of the three, alcohol played a key role in majority of the murders. He says that in 2020, the department will be working with liquor licensing boards across the country with the aim to reduce the number of murders caused by alcohol consumption. 

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“We made significant progress in the gang related crimes. This year is one of the years that we can safely say that gang related crimes are extremely down. Our major concern is alcohol still and so we still have to continue to focus on those three areas because the domestic violence style murder and the alcohol related murders are at number one and two. The gang is at number three so we have to see what else we can do working in collaboration with the different licensing board. We have tried that and they are still not as forthcoming as we would want them to be. We are hoping that in 2020 we can get them on board. Let me not say all because some of them do work extremely well with the police. I will applaud the chairman in Belmopan, Dangriga and Punta Gorda. Those chairmen they have worked well with the police in terms of ensuring that they don’t issue extensions when the police do not recommend that they be not issued and we would wish that the others would come on board.”