Minister of Police Minister upsets grieving mothers with accusations
doug singh
Minister of Police, Doug Singh has been on the job for seven weeks and in this period he has had a lot to say, in fact maybe more than any other predecessor. Singh has spoken about the hands-on-approach of his Commissioner of Police which he thinks is ineffective and the fat cops in the department who need to exercise. But has he misspoken this time? On Wednesday morning, the Minister was on the radio and made remarks about two women that are grieving the deaths of family members. The allegations have stirred the outrage of the mother and grandmother and as News Five’s Isani Cayetano found out, they want him to check his facts.
Isani Cayetano, Reporting
Newly appointed Minister of Police Doug Singh has come under fire from the public for what can be interpreted as inflammatory remarks made while on the talk show circuit. In an appearance on Love FM’s Morning Show on Tuesday, Singh made allegations about two grieving mothers. While the Minister insists that he did not mention any names specifically, he did state that the Lewis residence on Fabers Road is a known hotspot for illegal activity. Here is what he said:
Doug Singh, Minister of Police
That residence, as you would recall, was the home of eight year old Marquise Mahler who was gunned down along with forty-six year old Calvin Graham on July ninth. The child’s grandmother, Marie Lewis, has come forward to express her dismay with what she considers character assassination on the part of Minister Singh. She further states that the shooting death of the child was not as a result of drug activity on that premises.
Marie Lewis, Grandmother of Marquise Mahler“Marquise death is very tragic. It’s very hurt, it’s very painful because the way how di police di tek dis death of dis child it’s like a play or they are putting in drugs into it and it’s not drugs. I know nothing like that happened and I’d really want dehn bring up di date, di time and everything and di amount of time, di forty years weh he mentioned cause that da weh I di insist on forty years, which I was only twenty-seven years old at that time and having my children. And the amount of work that I do how can I have anybody dealing with drugs in my yard.”
And while Singh chose not to call names he did state categorically that there was one grieving mother among several participants in last week’s press conference held by Belizeans for Justice who was a former drug dealer and that her actions in the newly formed organization may damage its cause.
Doug Singh
“There was one particular person that spoke that was involved in several serious criminal activities and selling of cocaine and crack in her younger days. As a matter of fact, her son grew up in that environment and everybody in the neighborhood knows that. For us to get there, for her to get in there and infiltrate an organization and start speaking on behalf of that organization will undermine that organization.”
Elizabeth Longsworth, the mother of twenty-four year old Andre Trapp who was slain gangland style in Belize City on June tenth, is offended by that remark.
marie lewis
Elizabeth Longsworth, Mother of Andre Trapp
“Well I think Mr. Singh should get ih facts straight. First thing ih should do da wah facts check. He called me wah name dat I dah mi ah drug dealer inna my younger days and my son da mi di leader ah di Southside Gangsters. Mr. Singh need fi look fi di positive ah weh I do because he would never do or he could never do what I did. I da mi di mother weh started this mother thing ‘Grieving Mothers’ thing. I went to Mr. Jeffries and I tell ah we need fi—too much thing dih happen and we need fi get mothers that lost their kids fi mek wi form wah group wid dehn, wah support group and fi also find things fi di young men dehn fi do and find out what dehn di war bout. Whatever negative he might think was it, I made positive out of it. So he di talk bout mothers and mothers, he needs to go to the mothers of Belize and find out what can he do fi mek he could help with dis situation.”
In spite of the comments that have been made on air and the way in which they were perceived Lewis simply wants to clear her name of those allegations.
Marie Lewis
“I name Marie Lewis and I noh want dehn mention, grandmother. Dehn wahn bring specific names bring in names but when ih say grandmother I da Marie Lewis and I know who I am. I know I’m a Justice of the Peace and I am here to protect and help anybody. People out on di street know how I protect them and take care of them. I noh have no bad record out nowhere.”
Reporting for News Five, I am Isani Cayetano.
marie lewis
Don’t shoot the messenger, remember the old saying “If da no soh, da nearly soh”. Everyone makes mistakes & we need to understand that our children are dying because of our bad decisions. The comment about the murdered child growing up in that environment sounded elitist but coming to terms with the role some parents & grandparents played to create the climate that exists now must be addressed at the grass roots level because our politicians don’t have the balls to do it & as long as they continue to benefit financially will not acknowledge their role in creating a world that has left our young folks full of contempt & the old ones resigned to spending their final days peaking out from behind burglar bars. Our leaders will continue to kick the problem down the road & have us believing that this is a south side problem instead of a nationwide problem. Mr Singh still has not told us what minister intervened on that abandoned boat incident last week. Who? Why?.
Of course, weed was being sold & smoked over Yarborough Bridge & elsewhere in Belize, our politicians knew, some were back there smoking with the fellows. Play with puppy, puppy lick yo face. Everything in Belize is an open secret.
Now ladies, some of you came in with unclean hands but no parent should lose their child, don’t let it deter you. Get back to what you are trying to do & noh pay he no mind.
We are the adults, we cannot continue to talk out of both sides of our faces & continue to wonder why the situation only gets worse. Ms. Longsworth; having traveled down the road that some of these children are now on, please use it as a teaching tool for other parents & children who are making the same mistakes you made.
I agree with Mr Singh these people need to be expose.Reason is that when someone gets shot everyone tries to play it off when infact they know that their family members are drug dealers.
Come on Doug Singh,… getting out there and slamming ur tongue left and right trying to impress the public won’t help the crime situation here in Belize. We all know u are the new Minister of Police,.. great! We don’t need u to get on the media and make silly comments just to gain popularity,.. sit ur bottom in ur office and work out a strategic plan for this crime situation in Belize. Getting on publicity doesn’t work fi we,… u da nuh wa artist weh need fi get publicity weeks before their release,… u da nuh Faber weh need fi get publicity fi impress our PM,…. dat work fi dem,.. NOT FI WE! GET DOWN TO WORK and STOP SLAMMING UR TONGUE!!!
… BTW, Faber’s publicity technique has proven successful. He has impressed our PM and now seems to be his favourite for the party’s chair!!!! DAT NO WORK FI U SINGH!!!
I fully support what Mr. Singh says. If they have the records, and all that, its on paper, who will fight that? So, all I have to say is, thanks Mr Singh.
As usual,Belizeans do not like to hear the truth.Mr Singh was not saying any untruth about these people.I guess like the famous line says “you cant handle the truth”.People raise their kids as thieves,drug dealers and murderers and at the end expect priests.
Minister of police did not misspoke… WE NEED TO STOP THE POLITICAL CORRECTNESS NONSENSE AND TELL IT AS IT IS…
Mr. Singh is only speaking the truth. Nobody will just show up at your house and shoot up for no reason at all. It is unfortunate that an innocent child fell victim but one must remember that whatever you do in life will come back and hit you, this has to be drug related..if you are selling drugs you are destroying lives and ruining families…You live by the gun you die by the gun! People do not like when the truth is put out there because these people like to pretend that nothing is happening and live fake lives. Kudos to Minister Singh for stating the facts…these gang violence is not only a government issue its a social issue and to tackle it one must change the way they live…Police can set up all kinds of measurements to stop it but these people who are involved in drugs.gangs will go lengths and stop at nothing to do what they have to do.
Mr. Singh no back down, wen u trow stone d pig wey squeal da him get hit……..
How can two different lady name Marie Lewis….
Fun aside…Min. Singh is bold enough to speak “truth”. Im certain he has facts to back it up. At least this politician seems serious about crime…but then again…what about the boat incident by the airstrip….I still believe Min. Singh was covering up for Chamberlain
Would Mr. Singh and all of the other people’ livin the high life’ noh care if they RED of BLUE, be willing to give up some of their outlandish and selfish ‘spoils’ to fund social programs aimed at turning this country around. Let’s create a future we can all be proud of with EQUAL benefits for all Belizeans.
This is what happen when foriengners becomes politicians in your country.
Ask Mr . Singh about his relatives on Dean street.
To err is human, we all make mistakes. Most of don’t think about the consequences that sometimes linger for the rest of our lives (Unfortunately). There’s a price to pay for every action and in this case, the deaths of idiots and innocent people (A child). Something has to give, even if we don’t agree with the Minister’s statement. South Side has been plagued with drugs and other illegal activities according to the Minister for the past 40 years known to our Law Enforcement and Judicial Officials. This is to prove their incompetence for the past 40 years or even more, how shameful can that be?. My heart goes out to the familys that have lost “LOVED ONES”, these statements are very harsh but are very real, we need to focus on the solution now that the problem exist. I pray to GOD that the Idiots out there committing these henious crimes understand that they are more of the problem to their familys that might have to grieve for them along with other innocent family members. We as Belizeans need to check ourselves and help each other instead of destroying each other, because we now know that it has taken GOB 40 years to let us know that they couldn’t/cannot do anything about our crime situation in Belize and has the audacity to point their finger at the grieving familys now. Mr. Singh, I can see why you and Compol get along as friends and cannot see eye to eye with each other as far as leadership is concern. You guys don’t know when to call names and where to point your fingers. From “John Scawn Days, nothing??. Come on.!!!!
it is the truth that hurts, but when we come into term with our mistake, out negatives lifestyles, that is where the changes starts to take place!!
Please don’t take it as an insults, make changes in your lifes, it won’t bring back little Marquis, but make the change for him in his memory.
I totally agree with Mr. Singh comment.. Its time we talk and discusss and stop playing the victims as we in Belize like to do and the ….. also feeds this victim scenario. When we face reality as a country and learn to talk about these sensitive issues long overdue then we might have hope to fix our country. Poverty is not an excuse for crime.. There is somethig called, A GOOD DAY HARDS WORK´´ but we are lazy and play victims.. If not look at the rest of the country, they are not richer than in belize city and crime is not as high… Good for Mr. Singh,finally a politician with guts…
Dough Sing must remember there are countries he is not allowed to enter because of his criminal activities!!! He needs to be more careful!!!!!
Doug Singh ………….. CRIMINAL?????? Even so…… he could be more sympathetic than critical. He is talking down to Belizeans instead of beIng ——-UPLIFTING!!!!!!!
The Minister was right and i think that’s why it caused so much stir. Don’t get me wrong i sympathize the loss of the child but he simply fell victim to the ways of his surroundings.
The only way we will be able to precipitate change is by disecting and understanding the problem before you can fix it, painfully it is inevitable for the truth to hurt. Lets not forget though that our talk, enthusiasm & energy should only cause others to be friendly / enthusiastic and energetic otherwise we end up affecting our own personality. Way to go Dr. Singh.
You reap what you sow…
I totally agree with mr Singh…everytime there is a shooting or a murder the family members will come out and say how wonderful the person was and innocent…when everyone else knows otherwise!
i believe the minister raised a very important and smart fact about the crime situation, if someone is willing to do something about it, its important to look at different angles of the situation, and looking at parenting styles is definatly a factor. parents need to start raising children diferently and not letting them to incline into criminal activities. Belizean parents, molding of the child starts at home…not in the hand of the police…or the system
Truth hurts on all sides .I support what the man mister singh says as long as it was meant to create a dialogue which is needed. But lord knows that no mother wants their child to be a thief or worse yet a beggar .But poor people must do what they have to to survive .hungry belly hurt .A hungry man is an angry man. what we need is for the the rich or well to do to stop being hypocrites. It might be too late to change the hardened ghetto youths who are running and reacting to the pass survival activities .You know they are stressed out knowing that they might die by the gun because all they know is to live by the gun . But I want to challenge the ones who live in their Big house to at lease reach out to the 5year old youths and give them a little change to chop the school yard or something that you can think of .Do something.And to the brethren Shyne please keep doing your work . The truth hurts .They killed Jesus because he was for the poor .Truth respect and honor character of the modern messiah .bless
I agree with Minister Singh 100%, I will reiterate what people have already said, people do not like to be told about themselves, they don’t like the truth, and as someone says people raise thieves, murderers and drug dealers and expect priests. Do you notice something almost everytime some youth get gunned down? The parents and friends always say oh he was good person never gave any trouble – yeah freaking right, some of these young men do a lot of fool on the street. Parents don’t parent their children, they leave them to the streets and then expect positive of that.
Also, Mr. Singh is a public figure dodo birds, he has to make public statements, he has to do this so that the Public can walk beside him, he can’t do this under the guise of secrecy and not let the public know the truth and how he expects to solve the problem.
I give him props for telling the truth, and i expect to see some action after this….do right Singh and the law abiding citizens of this country will have your back; we, the law abiding citizens still out number the criminals by a significant amount.
It is very obvious that the minister is being paid off! If this is how he will start his job, Belize will only get worst. Never have I seen a minister bashing a family intstead of finding a solution. If he knows the whole family sold drugs for 40 years, why are they not in prison? He needs to stop collecting the Government salary and the extra cash from the drug dealers and do something. Because a person live in a bad area doesn’t mean that they’re bad. It only looks like he will only answer and protect the high society people. You need to clean your house first (the police department) and then work your way out. Belizians, another corrupted minister will not clean up Belize! Wake up if you want a change for Belize. Find a minister who is not in the position for the money, but someone who loves Belize and would like to see a future for there children. Make a stand!!!!!
The crimes in the city today is way out of hand. Come on people take the minister’s criticism as a lesson learned and stop acting like you are all dumb to where your problems in the city has started from day one!
I agree with Mr Sing to a certain extent. What he is saying is true; however, for a politician, he was not “PROFESSIONAL” about it. He could have said, what he said INDIRECTLY, & not cause the whole country of Belize to focus on the Lewis family. Especially not at a time like this when the community is still grieving for the loss of the innocent baby boy that was killed. I don’t disagree about what he said since it is true (sometimes) that parents/uncles/aunts/friends create the environment in which children are raised in. He just never needed to put people on blast without evidence to prove his statements. He should have taken whatever it is that he claims to have to prove the wrong doings in these people’s lives and then open his mouth about these mothers. Don’t just say & then say he can get the facts “afterwards.” Anyways, it has already been done, so no use crying over spilt milk. Mothers, continue to do what you are doing. Keep your heads up & continue to fight for justice for your loved ones. Don’t bak down! Don’t let the words of the minister keep you from doing what you want to do. Whether the things said are true or not, stand firm & continue fighting for justice. Belize needs to be cleaned up, so Mr Singh now that you’ve already made your statements…start the ACTING!….Do what you were really put there to do & make Belize a safer place for all of us …BELIZEANS!! 1 love!