Lake I Gang Feud “Volatile”
Chester Williams
The Belize Police Department is keeping a close eye on a gang feud in the Lake Independence area of Belize City. The feud involves personalities who were once friends now turned enemies. Police Commissioner Chester Williams told News Five that security cameras are in the area, serving as additional eyes for the department. Officials of the Leadership Intervention Unit are on the grounds with the aim to deescalate the feud. If all efforts fail, Williams says it will be jail time for all those involved.
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
“That internal feud in the Lake Independence area is an extremely tense feud. These were persons who were extremely close friends. The two young men who are the center of this feud, they were extremely close friends. They used to be in and out of each other’s home and we find now that the different groups that are following the different individuals, they too have been extremely close in the past. And so it makes it extremely difficult and it makes it more volatile to know that your enemy used to be in our home, knows everything about you, knows how you move, that makes it extremely dangerous. But as a department, and working again in tandem with LIU, we have been on the grounds, behavior modification, it’s on the grounds every day doing interventions, trying to see how best we can get these groups to coexist among themselves. We’re not where we want to be. We have increased our presence in the area. Yesterday we had some, surveillance cameras installed. And again, those cameras are going to serve as additional eyes for us. It will help us to gather intelligence. And, it will also enable us to be able to gather actionable information to be able to deal with issues in the area. So we do anticipate that the tension is going to decrease, but we do not believe that it is going to come to an end so easily. There is a lot more that we need to do, and we’re doing that to make sure that we can get the parties to understand that they must coexist. And if it is that we see the problem persist and they continue with the shootings and whatever. Then we move to the next stage, which again they won’t like. But we have to stand firm and make people understand that whenever you do wrong, you must suffer the consequences of it. We’re exhausting all other avenues, and if those avenues that we are exhausting now do not make the situation better, then we’ll move to the next stage where we can say to them, you know what? You all need a time out in prison.”
