Earl Baptist, the Police Raid, and the Murder Charge

On Friday, twenty-year-old Earl Baptist was among several persons who were injured when a team of law enforcement officers raided their home in Belize City.  Not only did the operation yield a prohibited firearm and ammunition, it also resulted in his arrest and subsequent arraignment on a charge of murder. It’s part of a crackdown on gang activity which is being led by the Belize Police Department.  News Five’s Isani Cayetano reports.

Isani Cayetano, Reporting

When Belize City police stormed a home on Police Street Extension last Thursday, they were armed with information suggesting that illegal guns and ammunition would be found on the property. They did so without knocking or asking. What they met upon barging into the family yard were several men, including a suspect whom they believe acted in concert with at least two others in the murder of Leslie Gillett in Burrell Boom Village.

ASP Fitzroy Yearwood, Communications Director, Belize Police Department

“He has been positively IDed as the assailant in that murder and has since been charged for it.”

ASP Fitzroy Yearwood

The accused gunman is twenty-year-old Earl Baptist, the youngest of four siblings born to Denise Flowers. When we spoke with Baptist’s live-in girlfriend on Friday, she flatly denied his involvement in the deadly shooting.

Isani Cayetano

“Has there been any talk about either of these men in this yard, perhaps including your boyfriend, of being a suspect in an incident in Burrell Boom?”

Voice of: Girlfriend of Earl Baptist

“Nope… none at all. I could [attest] to that because he noh go nowhere. He just gaan da court fi wahn different case, soh why in the world he would wahn do something fu mek ih got more case pan top ah weh ih done have and he just come from jail.”

Earl Baptist

Gillett was killed inside Matilda’s Mini Mart on January twenty-first in a shower of bullets. The businessman had been the target of unknown gunmen who visited the premises on a previous occasion and slaughtered two of his employees.

ASP Fitzroy Yearwood

“We have an arrest made in it and I am certain that the case is not a closed case because, as you know in Belize, we don’t close murder cases.”

Likewise, the murder of Aaron Baptist which also occurred in Burrell Boom remains an open investigation. It has long been rumored that his death may have been orchestrated by the now deceased store owner. Unlike Gillett’s case, no arrest has been made.

Denise Flowers

Denise Flowers, Resident Police Street Ext.

“I lose a son, about two years [ago] I lose my son, I do not get any justice up to today day. No police come to me and seh, “Miss Flowers, you know what, we find somebody bout Aaron Baptist. We find somebody or we dih get lee talking… Nothing, nothing.  Weh I do, I left everything eena God hand because yoh sih God, God noh di sleep.”

Regarding the operation that was conducted at the Baptist residence, Home Affairs Minister Kareem Musa spoke about the hostility that police officers often face when carrying out assignments of this nature.

Kareem Musa

Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs [Open Your Eyes]

“When you look at these videos when a police unit is entering a yard, they get insults, they get attacked, they get items thrown at them. They get people with guns in the yard and so perhaps that is the reason everybody is reacting that way to police because they know maybe they’re hiding a fugitive or maybe they’re hiding firearms and they have to react that way. I want to commend the police work in getting the firearm, the Mac-10 off the streets, as well as the firearm that was found, I believe, in the neighboring yard of the… Baptist’s last week.”

Isani Cayetano reporting for News Five.