Violent chopping incident with 18th Street Gang member

Alvan Gentle

Belmopan Police are investigating a chopping incident that has left one of its residents hospitalized. On Christmas Day, twenty-eight year old Amancio Ico, who is allegedly part of the Eighteenth Street gang, got into a fight with another group of persons, reportedly from a rival gang. According to police, Ico’s machete was taken away and used to inflict several chop wounds to his body. The carpenter of a San Martin address was rushed to the Western Regional Hospital and treated for a large cut wound behind his head, a chop wound to the right arm and a fractured skull. Officer Commanding the Belmopan Formation, Superintendent Alvan Gentle, says that several persons have since been detained.

Supt. Alvan Gentle, O.C., Belmopan Police

“Sometime after two p.m. on the twenty-fifth; that’s Christmas Day, police got report of a chopping incident that occurred on Wilson Street in the Maya Mopan Area. One Daniel Cal reported that while in the area on his bicycle, he was attacked by a group of young men supposed from the 18 Street Gang. An altercation began between him and some of his friends. He ran from these people seeking refuge into a friend’s house, Garcia’s Yard. They came out and confronted this group of men where stoning back and forth started. In the ___, some person pulled out a machete where one guy, Amancio Ico, was chopped in the back and this other guy Castellanos, also received injury inflicted by the machete. At the moment, Mister Ico is in the hospital and police has several people detained where at the conclusion of this investigation charges will be levied against those involved.  This seems to be a gang related incident because we are talking about so called Gang Members from the 18^th gang and the 13^th gang as well. So it seems to be a gang related matter and we are looking into the matter.”

Ico remains hospitalized in a critical condition at the Western Regional Hospital.