Residents protest police searches
A Belize City woman who should have been able to concentrate on burying her mother has instead spent the last two days dealing with this tragedy and the vandalism of her home. Jean Williams told News Five today that while she was tending to funeral arrangements police officers ransacked her home on Racecourse Street looking for drugs. She was not the only person affected by the daytime raid which, according to the Attorney General Dickie Bradley violated the residents constitutional rights.
Residents of number eighty-one Racecourse Street are in an uproar charging that the police burst through their gate, harassed them and then broke into five of the homes situated inside the complex. Edward Lewis, the landlord said the policemen, who were armed, first ordered them to get on the ground and then beat them up.
Edward Lewis, Landlord
“They stomp up about three or four of them boys in their back. They fire a kick after me and I moved my hand away and he shoved me down with his left foot on my right arm and he said get down, get down.”
Lewis says there was a total of nine policemen who were being supervised by Assistant Inspector of Police Edward Broaster. According to Lewis after they were harassed, Broaster then proceeded to break into the homes of Lewis’ tenants even though some of them were not even home.
Edward Lewis
“The boy come and haul the big iron, plowed open the door and slammed open the door, broke the padlock and then broke the other padlock; went away and he gone to the next door and kicked it open and when he done broke it open, he drag open the valise and he tear them down.”
Q: “Mr. Lewis did the police tell you what they were looking for?”
Edward Lewis
“They say that they were looking for drugs and they were looking for people who were loitering and dog around this place.”
Jean Williams and her husband, Simon had just returned from her mother’s wake when she was told that the police had broken into her home. Today Williams says she is not only upset that her house was ransacked but three hundred dollars, which she had saved for her mother’s funeral, is now missing.
Jean Williams, Tenant
“When we haul the lock and open the door and look on the floor that is the situation we find. But I know I had three hundred dollars put up for my mommy burial; know, with my little sisters them.”
Simon Williams, Tenant
“I find my door broke. I find my lock broken on my door and I get vexed because then a police does not business to break your house when you are not at home. That is left to a thief because they go on like a thief when they do that.”
Alice Faber said she told the police that some of the tenants were not at home and they should stop what they were doing but Faber said she was ignored.
Alice Faber, Tenant
“I say like this, those people are at work, you shouldn’t be breaking into those people places like that. He say they no care; they are looking for drugs.”
Q: “Did they go to everybody’s house?”
Alice Faber
“They knock everybody’s house; everybody house they knock open.”
When we contacted Raymond Timbriel, the Assistant Commissioner of Police and the person in charge of Eastern Division, Timbriel told News Five that he is aware that Broaster and some officers are on special operation but it is the first time he is hearing about the incident. He said for the police to investigate the incident, the residents would need to come in and make an official complaint.
Attorney General Dickie Bradley told News Five that under the Constitution police cannot enter someone’s home without a search warrant unless they are looking for firearms and ammunition or if they are looking for suspects or exhibits in an alleged offense. Since the police claim they were looking for drugs he considers the action improper and illegal.
