ComPol Whylie on Spike in Crime in Belize City

Our records show that in the first four months of the year, there have been forty-three murders; that is twelve more than in the same period in 2014. Our stats also show April recording the most murders so far with eighteen killings; nine of occurred within the past six days. Of those nine, eight occurred within the Belize District and only one person has been arraigned for murder. But is there a link in the murders in the Old Capital? Today, News Five asked the Commissioner of Police, Allen Whylie, if the police in fact have a grip on crime that is spiraling out of control once again. Whylie says that the shooting murders are as a result of splintering within various gangs in the city.

Allen Whylie

Allen Whylie, Commissioner of Police

“Yes that is true, over the past two weekends we have seen a number of shooting incidents which have resulted in a number of persons being killed. I must express condolences to the family of the deceased and assure them that the police department is out there, our investigators are out there working diligently to try to get the various witnesses to cooperate with us to put a solid case together that hopefully will lead to the identification, interdiction and arrest of the perpetrators of these things. Yes, many of the shootings that we see are gang related in the sense that it appears to us that there are splintering within some of the various groups and the murders that are committed are by, in many causes, members of the same groups targeting each other. It seems to be disharmony and distrust among them. We’ve taken a number of steps to try to neutralize the situation. One of the deficiencies as usual is that we do not get real time information or intelligence to be able to prevent all of these things. But we have reconfigured a number of our patrols, we’ve implemented a number of vehicular checkpoints in all of these affected areas and we are maintaining a twenty-four hours presence on the ground—armed and unarmed police officers. We are doing bicycle patrols, mobile patrols, motorcycle patrols. We have also in one area put out our mobile command center in the Vernon Street area and we are ensuring that those places are being heavily patrols. We are stepping up in terms of our stop and search in terms of persons who, we know, are involved in gang activities. But we are also challenged because there are a number of young people, new people, who are not necessarily known to the department.”

Residents are asked to support the department with providing information.