Police Called for Disturbance: Man in Hospital with Serious Injuries
Excessive use of force by law enforcement officers responding to distress calls has long been an issue for which the Belize Police Department is heavily criticized. Tonight, we bring you the story of a mother and her son and a call for police assistance that may change his life forever. Joshua Smith is admitted to ward at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital where he is recovering from gunshot wounds he received when responding officers opened fire on him. It is likely that he will remain visually impaired following a violent encounter with police on February twelfth. We warn you that the images of Smith’s injuries are quite graphic. News Five’s Isani Cayetano reports.
Isani Cayetano, Reporting
When Laura Smith called Belize City police on Saturday to intervene in a domestic altercation involving her twenty-six-year-old son, she did not anticipate that the result of her request would leave him bedridden. That’s because he was shot repeatedly with non-lethal rounds when the responding officers attempted to subdue him. At the time, Joshua Smith reportedly had in his purchase a knife, as well as a hammer. He would pay dearly for refusing to let go of both weapons.
Laura Smith, Mother of Abuse Victim
“On the twelfth of February, I came home and I saw him bleeding from both hands and he had a knife in his hand. So I went to my daughter’s room and I was trying to figure out what was going on. She said, “Mom, I just heard a struggle and I saw him all bloodied up and I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but he is off and he is not acting himself.” I said, “Oh my goodness.” I wonder if someone was fighting [with him], if there was a fight in the yard or something. She said, “I don’t know, mother. I just saw him like that and he is completely off.” I said, “Okay, I’ll call the police so they can figure out what’s wrong with him.”
Believing that the matter would be resolved without incident, she placed a phone call for police to respond to her address on East Collet Canal. They answered and immediately dispatched a team of officers to the location, but they did not come to dialogue with Joshua.
Norman Rodriguez, Attorney-at-law
“You don’t respond to a domestic matter between mother and son, go there, yes you find the person who is being complained about with weapons maybe in his hands but he is not advancing towards you and he is not advancing towards his family to harm them. He is standing still, and then you will pull out guns, I was instructed, with live rounds, to shoot the young man when you are told by a senior ranking officer in khaki uniform, shoot him with rubber bullets and to shoot him below his knees.”
Evidently they did everything but… The wounds he sustained are grave, including those he suffered in both eyes.
Laura Smith
“They told him to put down the knife and hammer, he did not comply. They called for backup, four more trucks came. The camouflage police which I believe is the MIT unit came and they told him to put down the weapon and then they started shooting and I heard the commander who was in charge, he told them please use rubber bullets and please shoot below the knee, but they were shooting him like crazy in his face and stomach area. I tried to tell them if they don’t have a taser or something, they said no, they don’t and they continued shooting, shooting, shooting.”
Joshua, according to his mother, braved the fusillade of rounds fired at him.
Laura Smith
“I remember the first set of police saying, “But he is not normal, he is not falling. At this point you will kill him and he will not put down that knife. We have to use like a shield to get to him. So they looked in my yard and they found like a huge piece of wood and they used it as a shield and they went up to him and they apprehended him and they handcuffed him. The MIT unit was still shooting and he was bleeding from his face profusely. They hurriedly took him to the doctor because they said he was losing a lot of blood.”
Smith has since retained the services of attorney Norman Rodriguez. He believes that the wounds inflicted upon Joshua Smith were unnecessary as he, purportedly, did not pose a clear and present danger to the responding officers.
Norman Rodriguez
“I can only say that from my perspective as an attorney-at-law, that the injuries were uncalled for and we don’t know if they’re even life-threatening. The young man still has pellets or some bullet form lodged in his skull, in his lip and we don’t know if any had gone into his eyes because he was bleeding profusely for many days. But while it is a court of law that will decide what their intention is, I will definitely pursue, if the family instructs me to do so, that some sort of liability falls upon those who are responsible.”
According to Smith, her son has not exhibited signs of mental illness, nor is he believed to have been under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the incident. She says that since the ordeal, Joshua has not been able to explain to her what led to him drawing for the weapons he had in his possession at the time of the brutal encounter. Reporting for News Five, I am Isani Cayetano.
