How Was Kenrick Longsworth Finally Caught?

The arrest of Kenrick Longsworth on Sunday afternoon brought to an end an intense manhunt that had been undertaken by police officers in Belize City since Friday evening.  While his capture in Isabella Bank was successful, it wasn’t without controversy.  That’s because a swarm of officers descended on Pickstock Hutment earlier in the morning in search of the suspect.  According to Commissioner Williams, the mayhem in Jungle was all staged while another operation was being ran simultaneously in the Belize River Valley.  Of note is that the same officers who stormed Jungle were the same ones who brought Longsworth in a few hours later.  So how did this all come to be?  That’s what we sought answers for at today’s press briefing.

Chester Williams

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“There were persons from within the hutment area that were feeding the suspect with information as it relates to the police’s operational efforts and so we did a diversion tactic with a view to make them believe that we’re concentrating within the hutment while our effort was concentrated exactly where we knew he was.  And with that, he was flushed out and he ran, he sought to run from the police and there was a civilian who was doing some farm work in the immediate area and so when he ran from the police, the civilian was able to apprehend him and then hand him over to the police.”

Isani Cayetano

“There is a 911 call that was placed in terms of a resident of the hutment seeing this individual at a so-called orange house, this is also caught on video, and she comes on record along with several other persons from Pickstock Hutment to say that your officers were outran, the very same officers who brought in, who wento Pickstock and the same officers who brought him in yesterday, they are saying these men and this one woman were outran by the suspect.”

Chester Williams

“Mr. Isani, let me craft my response to you very carefully.  It seems to me like everything John Q. Public says to you, you swallow easily.”

Resident, Pickstock Hutment

“He was in the bush lying down and when he saw them he got up and it was about six of them and the six of them and he ran and he ran out the six of them.  I mean and they didn’t have to kill him, they could have shot him in his foot and he never would have gotten away, but now he got away from them again.”

Chester Williams

“We have a number of officers who do different things.  We have what you call surveillance teams that we insert in certain areas to monitor certain things.  Yes, after he was apprehended, officers from here went to pick him up and bring him to Belize City, but they were not the ones who made the initial interception.”